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?

Her parents are divorced. Her father flew with his sister and are speaking to the English embassy to try to speak to his daughter.

Mother lives in a council house with the youngest son.

I think the girls is a bit stupid and naive. I do have sympathy.

The threads still exists. You can go back and reread.

The young girl had flown from Thailand to Georgia with a suitcase of 14 kgs of drugs, she was incredibly lucky to get caught in Georgia because had she been caught in Thailand it would mean death penalty. Thailand has zero tolerance for drug traffickers and large quantities of drugs carry death sentences. Smuggling drugs in any country is stupid but smuggling drugs in Thailand is another level of stupid.

I know that taking drugs was illegal let alone importing massive quantities.

I am always sympathetic to people desperate enough to cross borders with drugs for a few hundred or few thousand pounds, in return for risking a prolonged prison sentence (or worse).

You wonder whether they are stupid, naive, desperate or a combination of the three.

I do think the penalties for drug smuggling are harsh. Obviously, they need to be significant enough to deter, but arresting a mule is like taking one bundle off a conveyor belt of bundles stretching to in infinity.

They need to tackle the people making millions and even billions as a first port of call.

Certainly, mules need to go to prison. But you would have to be heartless if you didn’t want them to spend the majority of their time in the U.K.

Importing massive quantities from a country that carries the death penalty for importing massive quantities.

There's stupid and then there's "stupid".

I still don't think it's an excuse. If your child is taught by a 24 year old teacher, or your bloods are done by a 22 year old nurse, you rightly expect competency. You don't say "oh, they're still basically a child, it's ok to cock up".

Quite.

I read this book too - essential reading for young people in my opinion.

Why would assume there is any desperation? What a cop out.

Actually most people were very much on his side about how badly he’d been treated. I personally think he was treated appallingly

We have no idea of she was threatened or her family was threatened.

She may have known it was wrong - but her social media accounts are in her favour.

No sympathy. Everyone knows they should carry anything for anyone else on flight. You get asked on check-in (both online and desk) and have to declare you are only carry what you have packed and know about. If you lie and get caught then that’s fair enough. Otherwise everyone would be sending drugs by commercial passengers!

Dont think she is old enough or smart enough. I think she is very stupid and naive,

Not very sympathetic but I don't think they should lock her up forever. However, Georgia can pay for her jail term, I don't think she should serve it here. Not easy for prison visits but there you go. Play silly games, win silly prizes.

She didn't do this willingly, no sane person would do this no matter how money hungry they were.
She was coerced and trafficked.

I think all this infantilising of young adults doesn't do them any favours and perhaps leads to the erroneous belief that nothing will happen to them, or mum and dad will sort them out.

On the plus side, this whole situation serves as a great warning to other young people and I’m sure this story will dissuade others to go down this route.

At 18, life can feel like a game. What a disaster, to give your youth over, so willingly, to criminal activity.

The Chinese Amazon thing is far from a red herring. It’s an indicator of Bella becoming involved in something much bigger.

Have you never watched “Banged up Abroad?”
Sane people do it all the time.

Really? Have you evidence for the coercion? I've not seen that.

She’s 18 years old. Just a silly young girl/woman who hasn’t been able to think this one through. Of course I have sympathy for her.

no sympathy posing with wads of cash means shes done ti previously and got away with it

her family saying shes an intelligent girl-well shes not is she-you dont publicly declare youre breaking the law and say your bonnie and clyde

So, if an 18 year old boy/man broke into your house and stole your valuables, would you excuse him? Would you say "he didn't think it through"?

Don't be ridiculous. She has posts on SM about how she emulates Bonnie Parker and pics of wodges of bank notes, and how she loves fucking on foreign hotel balconies.

She revelled in her criminality.

None. Some people think they are invincible and above the law. Many countries won’t put up with the shit we do in the UK. We all did silly things when we were younger but never once did I think what a great earner it would be to smuggle drugs.