Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Laptop Cocaine Smuggler Jailed



A South African cocaine smuggler – who had the drug sown onto her laptop case – is starting a fourteen-and-a-half year sentence after being caught at Gatwick Airport.

Claudia Yvonne Schade, 43, was sentenced shortly after her travel companion Susan Margaret Thompson, 63, of Albermarle Road, Beckenham was cleared of the same offence.

She denied, but was convicted at Croydon Crown Court of importing 6.46 kilos of cocaine on April 3 as she stepped off a flight from Trinidad and tobago.

“It was a very large and every expensive amount of cocaine,” the jury were told. “It was secreted in each of these defendants laptop cases.”

The laptop cases were in the women's suitcases and were searched by the UK Border Agency.

The court also heard in recent times Schade, a woman of previous good character, had travelled to Japan and made other international trips.

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