The American had landed at Brussels Airport on February 18, with a flight from Newark. The woman traveled with two suitcases, but when customs checked them, she found more than fifteen kilograms of cannabis in each suitcase.
“According to the lady, she did not know what was in the suitcases and she had not received any money for the transport,” the prosecutor’s office said. “All she knew was that her entire trip had been paid for by an acquaintance of an acquaintance, and that she had to leave her suitcases at the hotel in Brussels, after which she would travel to the UK with a friend.”
“We find a group chat on her mobile phone that was created a day before her departure, in which someone gives her instructions for the trip and asks for regular updates. We also find traces of another drug courier, probably her friend.”
Accompaniment
The defense argued for a suspension or a deferred sentence: “My client now realizes that she should have known better, and did not sufficiently consider the fact that there was something wrong with this trip. After her conditional release, she returned to the United States, where she sought counseling for her drug problem and started looking for work again.”
The court listened to those arguments and imposed a suspended prison sentence of forty months on the woman.