A woman who pleaded guilty to trafficking in cocaine at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) told the court yesterday, “I’m guilty because it was found on me but I don’t know what it is.”
Annola Peters gave the court that explanation when she pleaded guilty to trafficking in narcotics before being sentenced to four years in prison along with a $909,000 fine by Magistrate Hazel Octave-Hamilton.
Peters was charged with trying to export 1 kilogramme, 10 grammes of cocaine on January 13 at the CJIA.
According to Police Prosecutor Shellon Daniels on the day in question at about 03:45 hrs the defendant was an outgoing passenger at the CJIA traveling to Jamaica on Caribbean Airlines flight BW 484 when she was stopped by the police, questioned and pat searched. The police discovered a bulky parcel concealed in the lining of the wig she was wearing.
Police took possession of the wig and on searching it found the narcotics. The defendant was told of the offence, arrested and escorted to the narcotics branch where the cocaine was weighed in her presence and it amounted to 1 kilogramme, 10 grammes. She was then charged.
Peters told the court that a friend, whom she named and said she had known for several years, offered to do her hair before she left the country. “When she finish putting on the wig I tell she it feel bulky,” she told the magistrate. Peters said her friend responded that it was bulky because she had to use four packs of curl extensions.
After she was caught at the airport, Peters said, she called her friend and her friend denied knowing her. “I didn’t know that she did it,” she told the court.
At this point, Daniels brought to the court’s attention a caution statement that Peters had signed which stated that she and the other woman were friends. According to that statement, Peters said the woman called her and told her “we got to do something” and told her where to meet her. Daniels reading from the caution statement said Peters met her friend at a hotel in Agricola where she was given a plane ticket, US$300 and the airport tax.
Peters then admitted to the magistrate that she did sign that statement. Pleading, she said, “I know I am guilty. Please be lenient with me, my mother lives with my daughter and she’s handicap.”
The magistrate told her, “You should have known that before. You should think before you act.”
The magistrate then handed down the sentence, which led to an outburst by one of Peters’ relatives, who had to be asked to leave the court while the magistrate told Peters of the $909,000 fine.
