Brazilian smuggler coerced into swallowing 33 pellets of cocaine jailed for 21 months

A Brazilian woman who swallowed 33 pellets of cocaine valued at €23,000 before travelling to Ireland has been given a 21-month sentence.

Talia Pavia De Souse (24), a student nurse and mother-of-two, was threatened and coerced into ingesting the drugs after taking out a loan of €2,700 for family expenses, the court heard.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that De Souse told gardaÍ after interview: “I am afraid”.

De Souse, who travelled to Ireland from Brazil via Paris, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine at Dublin Airport, on June 18th, 2022. She has no previous convictions.

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Garda Karen Fitzsimmons told Noel Devitt BL, prosecuting, that customs and excise had alerted gardaí after becoming suspicious of a woman travelling on a newly-issued Brazilian passport.

Gda Fitzsimmons said De Souse was detained at Beaumont hospital for three days and passed 33 pellets of cocaine that she had ingested before travelling. The weight was 330 grams and value €23,000. She has been in custody since her arrest after arriving in Ireland.

De Souse told gardaí she had taken out a loan equivalent to €2,700 to pay rent and family expenses in Brazil, but was threatened by her creditors and felt under pressure to ingest the drugs.

De Souse, a mother of two who had never flown before, said she felt she had no option but to do it.

At the end of her interview she told gardaí: “I am afraid.”

James Dwyer SC, defending, said De Souse, who had been studying nursing in Brazil, had fallen into debt trying to care for her family and was coerced into these offences.

He asked the court to take into account her guilty plea, cooperation in relation to her own role and her fear. He said as a drugs mule, she had put her own life at risk ingesting large amounts of cocaine.

Mr Dwyer asked the court to note how difficult it was for her to be away from her children in a prison far from home in a country that was not hers with a language she did not speak.

Counsel submitted the amount of drugs involved was smaller than in other cases before the court.

Judge Martin Nolan said De Souse was a “classic transporter or mule” who had been offered some reward to transport drugs and was operating under financial pressure and coercion.

He noted in mitigation her guilty plea, admissions, lack of a record and that it was unlikely she would return to this country. He said the amount of drugs was on the lower end of this offence.

Judge Nolan said she deserved a prison sentence, but a modest one, and imposed a 21-month term which he backdated to June 2022, when she went into custody.