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?

No sympathy at all!

So do you think that only crimes where someone is directly attacked should be illegal and punishable? Have you thought that through ?

Look up the damage that the drugs trade causes - lives shattered, families torn apart, violent crime both amongst the criminals involved in the making, importation and selling of them and from people desperate for their next fix, the cost to the NHS, the amount of time the police have to spend on drug crimes - and then you may see why it doesn’t matter that this girl didn’t actually attack anyone because everyone involved in this despicable trade contributes to the many drug problems in society.

This person is an adult and must know the risks and the illegality of being a drug mule but still chose to do it. Now she is going to pay the price.

I really blame social media, and never underestimate how unbelievably thick millions of people truly are.

Up until about 15 years ago, a girl like this stupid 18 year old, wouldn't have aspired to very much in life. Left school with a handful of shitty GCSEs (if that) and straight into a dead end job. The highlight of her year would be a week in Magaluf with her bezzie mates. Ends up with 4 kids by 3 different Dads, and so the cycle continues. Not a great lifestyle, but decidedly non dangerous.

But then these girls started watching social media and see all the glitz and the glamour, and they genuinely believe that this amazing lifestyle is a possible option for them? And they're just too bloody thick to realise the serious repercussions of their stupid decisions. No one ever ended up on a luxury yacht, or living in a Malibu condo by smuggling drugs through an airport for a few hundred quid.

These unscrupulous bastards didn't bother approaching an 18 year old studying Medicine at UCL, did they? No they targeted the very lowest hanging fruit, used her, and happily threw her aside because there's a hundred thousand more, just like her, too stupid to know any better.

Maybe that last paragraph is suggestive of the need to remind people of the penalties that exist and to make an example out of a few people.

I'm more thinking aloud rather than thinking through ;) I'm not sure what I think about example-making

we don’t know the ins and outs. She could have had savings which paid out when she was 18 - I had something similar when I reached that age. She could have had an inheritance which came to fruition and she decided to use it for travelling. So many unknowns. Yes she has done something awful, which has repercussions in her family, but we won’t know more until the court hearing.

As for theSM posts - I’m sure she regrets those. As will a lot of young people when they go into proper work (posting wearing little clothing or provocative poses seems to be a ‘thing’ nowadays).

I really feel for the family - there’s members who are older who may never see her again and I’m sure the whole thing is a living nightmare for them.

I think she should be deported and serve a sentence in the UK.

I believe Georgia has minimum sentences for trafficking, between 5 and 25 years. Life sentences can be passed depending on the amount.

She was carrying 14kg. Picture to put that in perspective (14kg of marijuana seized in a different case). Georgian officials described it as a ‘particularly large amount’. Without diplomatic wrangling, and that’s assuming that the UK will be motivated to get her back and Georgians authorities will be receptive, she’s going away for a while.

Why? It’s usual to serve your sentence in the country where you commit the crime.

I just feel we don’t have enough information to pass judgement!

Why? You serve your sentence in the country where the crime is committed.

Why should the UK taxpayers pay for her stay in prison in the UK?

I feel her family has a lot to answer for. You have to wonder why her parents haven’t taught her right from wrong?!

It’s actually not uncommon for people to be returned to their own country to serve out their sentence. I believe the original country still makes decisions on parole etc, though.

Also it has to be a country signed up to a transfer agreement. I have no idea if Georgia is.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/arrested-or-detained-abroad

Why?

And just her or everyone who has been convicted of a crime overseas?

You sound very sure that they haven’t - do you know them personally? I see you referred to their parenting skills in many of your posts and I’m curious how you are so sure of this.

As for theSM posts - I’m sure she regrets those. As will a lot of young people when they go into proper work (posting wearing little clothing or provocative poses seems to be a ‘thing’ nowadays).

These aren't the problematic posts. The problematic posts are the ones with wads of cash in headbands and various statements where she tries to sound like a Mafia moll.

Well I'd like this Egyptian who's just been imprisoned for trafficking asylum seekers to be deported and serve his sentence in Egypt so we don't have to pick up the bill.

I can't believe the lack of empathy on here for somebody who is practically a child and has been groomed and manipulated by the real scumbags.

Yes, I watched the documentary on iplayer about Shamima Begum too. Fifteen years old.

Agreed - but just because it’s been posted doesn’t mean it’s a true reflection….despite what the outcome was (in this case the drugs smuggling). Just like it doesn’t mean she’s actually done it before. It doesn’t mean she wasn’t threatened into doing it either… we don’t have all the facts and pps attacking her family and upbringing will be hurtful to her family who are likely in shock and horrified at the situation. And I have the utmost empathy for them.

It’s a difficult one for Georgia though, because do you let her off lightly just because she’s a young woman from another country? I wonder how they’d treat a male in her position? You can’t have double standards.

You haven't seen her own SM posts then where she brags about being another Bonnie Parker, fucking on expensive hotel balconies abroad and pics of great wedges of banknotes held together with scrunchies ... ..????

"Groomed and manipulated" my arse.

That is rather disturbing isn’t it!

also who tf idolises Bonnie Blue … vom 🤢

Her parents haven't safeguarded her though.

Guidance on safeguarding children. includes looking for changes in behaviour, unexplained money, expensive gifts, online profiles.

Even if we argue she is an adult, now 18, her SM account goes back to before she was 18.

Her parents should have noticed, should be questioning her trips, looked at her rather public SM, at the very least. Were they?

@Scentedjasmin

If she's locked up for 20+ years, that's her chances of motherhood over.

You say this as if it's a bad thing.