Any sympathy for the British drug mule in Georgia?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14723481/drug-mule-suspect-company-director-Chinese-retailers-Amazon.html

I was reading about this girl and actually do have a little symapthy. She is obviously vain, stupid, misguidedly ambitious but I don't know whether she is real player in the drug trade and has probably been groomed into carrying drugs by men promising her the earth.

The penalties for drug smuggling are understandably harsh on Georgia but should the UK try and get her to serve a sentence in the UK?

Just because people do stupid or illegal things doesn't mean they shouldn't feel the consequences.

14 kilos is a huge amount. Think about your own suitcase when you're going on holiday.
What would it teach others if she was released?

I hope for her sake she's not jailed for twenty years, that would be a waste of her life, but a custodial sentence is appropriate.

Yes of course she is my priority in life and Ben now she is materialistic she rarely asks me to buy her anything. She is more into the arty side of things and I hope it stays that way.

Not only on Mumsnet. I despise those middle class self righteous, preachy, hypocritical users of illegal drugs so much.

I feel sorry for her too, OP. She's very young, very much an idiot (the stupidity young people often do without thinking of consequences), and was very much groomed. I'd feel different if she smuggled several kgs of heroin/cocaine instead of hashish, too often young people think hash is less problematic than alcohol or tobacco which makes it somehow ok.

I hope the UK government can bring her home to do the sentence in British soil. I hate to think her life will be forever destroyed for being a hashish mule when the people behind her grooming are billionaires never facing any kind of consequences.

Info on Companies House is interesting. I think there was actually two similar businesses that she became involved in.

Customs would be looking out for young women like her, it's happened too often.

It won't be so easy to get away with.

@Alondra

...and was very much groomed...

Evidence?

I wonder if the parents ever looked at her social media - she appears not to have strict privacy settings!

I think it's pertinent that she is white and female. It's unfair but also patronising to have a different standard for her. I don't think even a white working class male, let alone a black male, would get as much sympathy. In fact, I'm sure there have been many who haven't even made it into the media.

I do think life is a bit ridiculous though. She needs a good scare and those thinking it's an easy ride need a good scare too. Even 15 years would be a lot at her age.

Her age. Just common sense if you have any idea how the drug trade works.

Except her own family have said she’s an intelligent girl. But you know better right, and you know she was groomed, despite travelling to Thailand on her own, with her own father only a stone’s throw away in Vietnam.

Except her own family have said she’s an intelligent girl

As my teens would say - well, duh. They're hardly going to say that she's always been a shallow thickie who can barely string a sentence together, are they?

I don't know better. I'm expressing a personal opinion in a thread, in a public forum.

As to intelligence.....I doubt she has the emotional intelligence and life experience to fully understand what she was doing and the awful consequences she could face.

I feel sympathy for her.
Yes, she's been really stupid but some people are really suggestible.
And she probably thought she knew it all.
A dangerous combination in the young.

Her poor family.

When you say ‘she was very much an idiot and very much groomed’, it sounds like you’re saying these things as proven facts.

I agree but honestly I know some 25 year olds who still live at home and their parents basically treat them like they are teenagers still. But like I say I know some young teens who are immensely mature. That has always been the case but I feel like this gulf has been massively exacerbated in the last 20 years.

It looks like if/when she is convicted there is a possibility of a transfer to a UK prison.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/georgia-prisoner-pack/georgia-prisoner-pack#:~:text=The%20UK%20and%20Georgia%20are,permanent%20residence%20in%20the%20UK)

Did I read that she arrived on flight from UAE? If so she is probably ,lucky to be in Europe.

She's 18, an adult. Her parents have no control over what she does online or anywhere else.

I do feel sorry for her in as much as she's done a monumentally idiotic thing. She's sold her legal identity and attempted to smuggle a very large amount of drugs. She's now been caught and is looking at many years in the big house.

However, I also thing being young and idiotic is no defence. We've all been young and done some stupid things but what she's done is on a whole new level. No one has tricked her jnto this, or forced her which imo would be different. Everyone knows drug smuggling is illegal and you're likely to face a large sentence or worse.

When people break the law in a foreign country they need to be prepared to pay the consequences, otherwise where is the deterrent?

Yes, can you imagine them saying to the press ‘well I’m not surprised she’s done this to be honest, she’s really fucking thick’? 😂

Another young person seduced by the prospect of a glamour lifestyle funded by illegal activity.

Not the first and not the last. It's human nature and someone needs to be made an example of to stop others going down the same route.

No sympathy at all. If anything she is very lucky to have been caught in Georgia rather than Thailand. 14kg of drugs is a lot.

Nope.

No sympathy, no way she didn't know what she was doing. Playing the thicky card isn't going to work.

In those cases, they go on about how vulnerable and innocent they are, that they have SEND and that they didn't understand what they were being told to do - just like the 'Oh, my poor Mum/Grandma, she didn't understand, it's terrible that she's being picked on by the authorities to make a point' when older women are caught.

Interesting that her appearance has changed so drastically to be wearing big glasses with her hair tied back and a set of tiny shorts and a little cropped top in baby blue - almost as though she's trying to appear like she's much younger, about 14 or so turning up to court in her pyjamas instead of the big, clever grown up international drug smuggler? A cynical person might say that this is a deliberate attempt to manipulate opinion/appeal to the gullible.

Seems to work for some posters.

I feel sorry for her family and that someone so young could throw away their life like that. For those saying she could get life, life is 20 years in Georgia. Cannabis has actually been legalised there but smuggling it in is still a serious crime.

The ‘selling your passport details’ as part of a scam to set up Amazon business accounts for people in china (banned by Amazon due to a fallout) was very stupid. It seems she was not the only idiot to fall for this in her area. This does not seem to be linked to the drug smuggling but may be used in the prosecution that she was willing to take part in criminal activities.

Personally I blame a lot on social media. The idea of wads of cash for an insta style life. Make a quick buck etc. she was clearly influenced by this, the duck pouts / bikini shots / money etc. I think she was highly naive and foolish and will be paying a high price. My DD is a similar age and the thought makes me feel sick if that was my child.

She's 18, an adult. Her parents have no control over what she does online or anywhere else.

But most parents would have a bit of a word if they saw their teenage daughter flaunt her activities online, for all the world to see!