European woman jailed and fined on charges of importing cocaine

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced a European woman to 10 years in jail to be followed by deportation and fined her Dhs50,000 on charges of importing 4.6 kilograms of cocaine in her suitcase while entering the UAE on a flight from an African country. The case dated back to last August when a customs inspector at Dubai Airport suspected the defendant’s suitcase.

The customs inspector said during the investigations that the defendant’s suitcase was passed through the airport’s x-ray screening device and found to contain something abnormal. Searching the suitcase manually, the customs inspector found a material suspected to be narcotics inside the suitcase. Taken to the forensic lab, the material was found to be cocaine and weighed 4.6 kilograms.

On interrogation, the defendant denied she had any idea about the cocaine, stating that the suitcase and its contents belonged to an African young man she knew through social media and met later in his home country as part of her trip to Africa and Dubai. She added that the young man asked her to hand the suitcase to a man in Dubai.