A former porn star has been jailed today in Australia after admitting she tried to smuggle $21.5 million worth of cocaine on a cruise ship.
Canadian Isabelle Lagace, 29, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison after she pleaded guilty to taking the class A drug on-board the $13,000-per-head MS Sea Princess, that set off from Britain.
She claimed she tried to smuggle the drug after being given an ultimatum about clearing a $20,000 debt to an unnamed person.
Lagace, from Quebec, had boarded the luxury cruise ship in Southampton in June and had documented her journey across the US, South America and Pacific with dozens of Instagram posts and bikini-clad photos.
When the ship docked in Sydney on the 51st day of the 68-day cruise, Australian Border Force officers found 66 pounds of cocaine stashed in a suitcase in her cabin, the court heard.
The court heard how Lagace took full responsibility for her actions saying: “I have embarrassed my family, my friends, myself.
“It pains me to know that my defining years of womanhood will be spent in prison halfway around the world.”
The court heard how Lagace met other people on the cruise, including her cabin mate Melina Roberge, 23, and Andre Tamine, 63 – who have also been accused of importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug into Australia.
In another cabin, the third co-accused in Australia’s biggest drug importation by passenger vessel – Andre Tamine, 64 – allegedly had up to 154 pounds in three suitcases.
Four men who were part of the alleged drug operation were also on board as the cruise ship sailed towards Australia, the court heard.
Evidence given during a committal hearing for Roberge alleged she was a knowing participant in the attempt to import the cocaine into Australia in August this year, reports News.com.au.
Lagace entered a plea of guilty to the charge of attempting to import a commercial quantity of cocaine and will be sentenced on the same date.
Lawyer Ragni Mathur, who argued Roberge was unaware of the cocaine in her friend’s luggage in the cabin they shared, said four male passengers had traveled with the three accused on the cruise.
But she said Roberge had booked her ticket for the trip with another man who was not associated with the criminal enterprise behind the drug deal.
However, Lagace and Tamine had booked their cruise – which visited Colombia, French Polynesia Chile, Peru and New Zealand – together, Mathur told the court.
Mathur said that Roberge should escape being committed for trial because she was only guilty by her association with Lagace.
On surveillance footage of Roberge embarking and disembarking the Sea Princess, she had “nothing in her possession except a wallet or mobile phone”.
Whereas Lagace, who carried both an iPhone and BlackBerry — known as a device “that is impossible to decode” — had allegedly told investigators “you won’t be getting that” when they asked for its password.
Mathur said that Lagace had admitted at one point that she owned the suitcase in which cocaine was later found.
Prosecutor Lincoln Crowley told the court that although the Crown case against Roberge was circumstantial, she and Lagace had travelled for more than a month in a tiny ship’s cabin in which there was a suitcase packed with almost 66 pounds of cocaine.
“The cocaine, [66 pounds] of it, was found in a cabin occupied by Roberge and Lagace for the past 40 days, packed up, strapped up, taped up and sitting in a suitcase and would be worth a considerable amount of money,” Crowley told the court.
“Two women are minding the cocaine. Ms. Lagace and Ms. Roberge are warehousing a quantity of cocaine.
“It is in effect a floating warehouse. They are sitting on this until they get to Australia.”
Crowley said the drug found in a Swiss suitcase in the girls’ cabin was in layers of Clipseal plastic bags tied up with masking tape.
He said the larger amount of cocaine allegedly found in Tamine’s cabin was similarly packaged inside three suitcases.
But Mathur contested that despite the fact that Roberge was a friend of her travelling mate Lagace, that did not mean she knew about the cocaine enterprise.
“You don’t need two chickens to keep warm a golden egg,” she said.
Williams will hand down his decision on whether or not to commit Roberge to trial on December 21.
The maximum penalty for smuggling a commercial quantity of cocaine, a federal offence in Australia, is life imprisonment.