Drug mule, 24, gets eight years for cocaine trafficking

Czech woman sentenced to eight years in prison and fined €20,000 for importing 901 grams of cocaine, worth €57,513

A 24-year-old Czech national has been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment and fined €20,000 after she pleaded guilty to having imported almost one kilogramme of cocaine in 2013.

Judge Michael Mallia was told how Lucie Azuka had been arrested at the airport by officers from the drugs squad on her arrival from Spain in July 2013.

Customs officials had found Azuka to have concealed a number of capsules in a contraceptive inside her body. She was escorted to Mater Dei Hospital where her stomach was X-rayed, identifying other capsules which she had swallowed.

73 capsules were recovered from her person, containing a total of 901grams of cocaine with a street value of €57,513.

During her interrogation, the accused had told police that she had been promised a large sum of money to smuggle the drugs to Malta and hand them over to a third party. The amount she would receive was dependent on the number of capsules successfully imported. Her co-conspirators are undergoing separate criminal proceedings.

During her trial it emerged that Azuka had imported a total of 142 capsules, as she had managed to pass through security undetected on two prior occasions; in December 2012 and a week before her arrest in 2013.

Azuka filed an admission in order not to face a trial by jury and possible life sentence.

The judge also ordered that all her liquid and fixed assets are to be confiscated in favour of the government.