Dutch national, Adriana Kaya Teuben who tried to smuggle TT$1.4 million worth of cocaine in a hidden luggage compartment through the Piarco International Airport was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday after a nine-member jury found her guilty.
By Darren BahawJustice Larry Lalla, in passing sentence against Teuben, said the offence of trafficking illegal drugs, especially cocaine, through local ports and airports was a matter which the courts looked at seriously.
Lalla, presiding in the Port of Spain Fourth Criminal Court at the Hall of Justice, said such offences "affected the international reputation of this country and its citizens", a reputation "which we guard very jealously".
Teuben, 50, was arrested by two undercover officers, PC Lyndon Russell and PC Arthur Nathan, attached to the Organised Crime, Narcotics and Firearms Bureau on June 17, 2002 moments before she boarded a BWIA flight enroute to London.
Russell said he had received information from a confidential informant prior to Teuben's arrest.
He said after emptying Teuben's suitcase he found it had an unusual weight.
Using a hammer and a chisel, he hacked away the false compartment and found 32 packets of cocaine, weighing 3.5 kilos.
Teuben, who has been in custody since her arrest, had insisted that her matter go to trial without an official interpreter saying that she understood English well enough.
Defence attorney Kathy Ann Mottley pleaded with the judge to exercise mercy in sentencing her client noting that this was her first conviction for any criminal offence.
However, State prosecutor Joy Balkaran called on the judge to send a strong message to other likely offenders.
Teuben testified that she came to Trinidad for the fist time, seven days before her arrest, on a holiday after her son gave her an airline ticket as a 50th birthday present.
During her stay, she said she resided at a Woodbrook guesthouse, and befriended a local taxi-driver, who loaned her the suitcase in which the drugs had been found after her own luggage was damaged.
