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?

Being 18 is not an excuse.
Did she believe what she was doing was legal?
No.
🤷‍♀️

Exactly, you have no idea. Fancy thinking you know better than the customs and police on how to do their job.

Both these women are obviously a bit, erm, thick, to put it politely. How on earth does someone not realise that travelling to Philippines, Bangkok, then Georgia, alone, as a very young woman, might look a bit suspicious.

And they knew they were doing something illegal. 12kg? Come on, now. The bit about selling passport info for £500 and becoming a company director for a Chinese business rejected by Amazon - not dodgy at all.... Bet these chumps are Reform voters too (with reference to illegally supplying info to allow an o/s company to set up in the UK - 'they're coming over here, taking our jobs, ruining local business etc etc)

I did NOT minimise what she was involved in. Please retract that.
I was very clear about what she was involved in and that she should be punished.
Do not wilfully misinterpret my posts.

My 14yr old child wouldn't ever have been able to leave the country unknown to us and they certainly wouldn't have joined a terrorist organisation. A quick check of her computer would surely have given them clues as to her horrific views and intentions.

Well why arrest these foolish young kids at customs and not actually follow the trail?

Exactly. Plus the father had been at an anti American demonstration with flag burning etc.
She is definitely guilty, and these Islamist regimes and organisations are a scourge on a global scale. There isn't really a comparison other than to say SB was definitely younger and groomed. No evidence this woman was.

No and another stupid girl has been caught today! Vain and self obsessed looking for popularity, glamour and easy money. Typical of their generation

Yes, it's not so much what she was when she went out there, it's because of what's she's become, due to conditioning.

Exactly. Of course her family will try to minimise the offence, will try to garner sympathy. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us should have any sympathy for such a greedy and law-defying individual. She absolutely needs to punished.

Which is why I didn't minimise it, and agree that she should be punished.
I actually also think she should be constantly monitored.

Of course these mules need to be punished! We absolutely need deterrents to stop others doing such stupid and illegal things!

Exactly. 2 a penny 18yr olds getting arrested meanwhile the serious organised crime people are laughing their heads off.

She claims she is already pregnant. In Georgia, female prisoners keep the child for three years, then it's offered to the family for adoption.
Her middle aged mother would be thrilled to be raising a toddler, I'm sure.

Not a lot

Imagine if we didn’t punish mules like her. That will only encourage more people to take the risk and transport huge amounts of illegal drugs.

Of course we should also go after others involved but EVERYONE knowingly involved in this illegal drug trafficking needs to be punished.

I didn't say they shouldn't be punished. I said customs should follow the trail before arresting them and also get the people behind it.

It may be only one episode of drug smuggling, @mids2019, but how many lives are going to be damaged by the drugs she has smuggled? She is not the victim here.

Drug smuggling is not the sort of silly thing everyone does when young - and surely anyone with even half a brain knows how illegal drug smuggling is, and that the penalties can be severe - as they should be!

I have no sympathy for her whatsoever.

Well, parents need to do a better job of raising their 18 year olds!

I agree. It's just a carte blanche for greedy people otherwise.

If their countries will take them I'd happily send all foreign criminals to serve their sentence in their own country's prisons, provided those prisons are not inhumane. This young woman deserves to be locked up, she doesnt deserve the soft of suffering that is likely to mean in Georgia.

Yes, of course. EVERYONE involved in illegal drug trafficking needs to be punished. We need deterrents to stop others doing the same. That was a huge amount of drugs she was carrying - just think how many lives would have been affected…

There's a girl of a similar age, who smuggled a load into Newcastle, she's just got a suspended sentence and a community order.

I'm mystified as to the destination, we have some Georgian friends and they told me marijuana growing and smuggling is rife, in Georgia. A lot gets smuggled into Russia and the cops and customs on both sides get paid off.

It's like smuggling spaghetti into Italy.

Not sure why my previous comment has been hidden and needs checking when it was only about the Peru 2 (maybe the link to the news article🤷‍♀️).

Does anyone remember them? One sold her story and wrote a book after she got out, appears on tv and the papers talking about it. The other has lived a quiet life.

I know which one this one is likely to follow. A stint on Celebrity big brother or Love Island maybe?!