A woman who smuggled nearly 100 pellets of cocaine both inside and outside her body accidentally revealed her crime to Border Force officers by showing them pictures of the drug on her phone. Larissa Lins, 27, was stopped at Manchester Airport after flying in from Brazil.
She claimed she had come to the UK to ‘research nice places’, having previously travelled through France and Portugal. Despite denying she had brought anything illegal into the country, she inadvertently showed officers a picture of the ‘white pellets’ while sharing photos of her time in France.
Further searches revealed that Lins had ingested and concealed a kilo of the drug both internally and externally. After pleading guilty to being involved in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class A drug, she was sentenced to prison yesterday (October 17) and told she will ‘almost inevitably’ be deported back to Brazil after serving 40 per cent of her sentence.
Prosecutor David Toal said that on August 24 this year, Lins had flown from Sao Paulo to Manchester via France and Portugal, carrying only a small pink cabin bag. Speaking through a Portuguese interpreter, she told Border Force officers this was her first visit to the UK and that she came to ‘walk around and research nice places’.
Lins insisted she had packed her suitcase herself and had not brought anything illegal into the UK, reports the Manchester Evening News.
“She volunteered her phone to show officers images she had taken in France, and whilst looking through officers saw images of white pellets, which were believed to be cocaine,” Mr Toal explained. “The defendant was arrested, and she told officers she had pellets of cocaine inserted inside her body since the previous day. She was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital where, at various stages, she passed all of the internal pellets.” Officers conducted a further search of Lins, and found additional pellets hidden within the lining of her bra.
In total, 99 pellets were seized weighing a total of 1.1 kilos with packaging, and 923 grams without. The wholesale price for that amount of the class A drug was estimated to be around £30,000, and the street value was in the region of £72,000, the court heard.
Lins was arrested and interviewed in which she admitted swallowing 100 pellets before flying to France, and spent the next three days passing them before returning them to another person. The day before flying to Manchester she admitted swallowing ten more and inserting further pellets internally whilst her ‘cousin’ placed some more inside her bra.
She said would have received the equivalent of £1,400 in Brazilian real. She was said to have no previous convictions in the UK or in her native Brazil. Laura Broome, mitigating, said her client was in a ‘state of sheer desperation’.
“That desperation was exploited,” she said. “She tells me she was instructed how to swallow, conceal and insert the pellets. Had any of those burst, she could have died.”
The sentencing judge, Patrick Field KC, remarked on the risks Lins took with her safety and liberty, which ’emphasised her state of mind’.
“It almost demonstrates the little regard those above her had for her safety,” Ms Broome concurred. She described the mother of four as genuinely remorseful and ‘desperate’ to return to her children.
Ms Broome further explained that Lins had been recruited through coercion, intimidation, and control, describing her as ‘naive’ and with ‘no influence’ over those higher up in the criminal hierarchy. “Once she had realised the seriousness of the situation, she tried to stop her partaking any further, but was told she had no choice,” the barrister added.
Lins, who has no fixed address, received a three-year prison sentence. “This sort of crime is regarded very seriously in these courts,” Judge Field KC informed Lins, who was visibly upset throughout the proceedings.
He acknowledged that the criminals who recruited her were more sophisticated and utterly unsympathetic to the risks she faced. “I have no doubt [that amount of money] was a significant sum to you.”