A Canadian woman was sentenced to two years in jail after being caught in Bermuda with nearly $1.8 million worth of cannabis hidden in her suitcase.
Mara Faiazza, 25, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of importation of a controlled drug related to an incident on May 19, English-language Bermudian publication the Royal Gazette reported.
Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe said the offence was serious and noted the large amount of drugs seized, but added the defendant had shown genuine remorse and provided “substantial” help to officials.
“I trust and hope that, during the time you are incarcerated and once you finish, you do provide advice to those young women and men that they must be very careful about who they associate with — because it could end literally in tears,” he said.
Prosecutor Adley Duncan told the court that Faiazza flew to Bermuda from Toronto with a checked grey suitcase and a customs K9 unit showed interest in the bag as it sat on the baggage carousel waiting to be collected.
Faiazza was selected by customs officers for a secondary inspection upon retrieving her luggage, the Royal Gazette reported.
The woman initially said she had packed the bag herself, but when she was asked for the combination to open the locked suitcase she said it belonged to a friend.
She told officials the friend had given her the suitcase at Toronto Pearson International Airport before her flight and someone else who knew her was supposed to collect it in Bermuda.
The luggage was X-rayed and officers noticed several “anomalies.” Immigration officials opened the suitcase with the default lock combination and found 40 heat-sealed bags containing 17,779 grams of cannabis with a street value of nearly $1,777,900.
“I guess I trusted the wrong person,” she reportedly told officials.
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The starting point for such an offence was eight years, the prosecutor said, before adding that the defendant was entitled to a significant discount because of the help she provided.
Charles Richardson, the counsel for Faiazza, also noted that the defendant was a young woman with a previously clean record. He said she had made a “careless mistake” in bringing the suitcase to Bermuda, but did not know its contents when she agreed to do so.
“She would be a clueless mule,” Richardson said. “She was used by those who packed the bag and gave her very little information.”
Faiazza told the court that she was immensely apologetic and wanted to do whatever she could to give back and prevent others from finding themselves in the same position.
She told her family: “This is no reflection on any of you.”