75-Year-Old Woman Sentenced to 12 Years for Third Heroin Importation Attempt

The woman was found with 5.1kg of heroin in her luggage. This is her third conviction for the same offence.

A baggage handler loads a blue bag onto a conveyer belt at Melbourne Airport, Australia, on Oct. 31, 2023. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

A 75-year-old woman from Cabramatta in New South Wales (NSW) has been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by the Victorian County Court following her third conviction for heroin importation.

She has twice been convicted of the same offence in NSW, and will serve a non-parole period of eight years.

The investigation began on Jan. 26 last year, when Australian Border Force (ABF) officers at Melbourne Airport stopped the woman after she arrived on a flight from Laos.

A scan found “anomalies” in her luggage, and a search found 7 kilograms of a substance hidden in a hammock.

An initial test returned a positive result for heroin.

Forensic testing by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) subsequently determined the substance was about 5.1 kilograms of heroin, with a pure net weight of 3.75 kilograms.

In March this year, the woman pleaded guilty to one count of importing a commercial quantity of heroin and was sentenced in April.

Number of Elderly Drug Mules Rising

AFP Acting Commander Jason McArthur said the case highlighted the ruthless nature of criminal networks in their pursuit of profits at the expense of the Australian community.

“Criminals have zero regard for the people they involve in their crimes or the devastating impact of illicit drugs on members of our society,” McArthur said.

“If this amount of heroin had reached our streets, it could have caused significant harm.

ABF Acting Superintendent Costas Karatzas said this detection serves as another reminder that his agency is “well versed in concealment methods favoured by organised crime, including the use of drug mules, and our officers are highly skilled in assessing and preventing any risks to our border.”

The use of elderly people by criminal syndicates seems to be becoming a trend.

Last year, a 78-year-old Canadian man was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Victoria after importing 18 kilograms of methamphetamine through Melbourne Airport in 2022.

And a 70-year-old New Zealand man was charged with trafficking 5 kilograms of heroin, said to be worth $2 million, into the country.

The AFP first warned of the upswing in the practice in November of 2022, reporting then that they had arrested 18 alleged drug mules coming from international flights in the past year. Many were the victims of online scams.

But the practice can be traced back as far as 1978, when narcotics agents discovered what was then the largest ever haul of illicit drugs to land in Australia, hidden inside a campervan belonging to two elderly American women tourists, Vera Todd Hays and Florice Bessire, subsequently dubbed “the drug grannies” by media at the time.