The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sentenced two Thai women to life in prison after finding them guilty of smuggling more than half a kilogram of cocaine from Brazil into Cambodia.
Presiding Judge Kim Dany also fined the women, 41-year-old Wong Trakool Sangdao and 31-year-old Thanyant Sama-Arphat, 60 million riel each (about $15,000).
Police arrested Ms. Sama-Arphat at Phnom Penh International Airport on May 4 after a tip-off from Thai anti-drug police and discovered six packages of cocaine weighing 694.49 grams sewn into her underwear, said Yeng Bunna, chief of the Ministry of Interior’s anti-drug police unit.
Ms. Sama-Arphat claimed she was an unsuspecting mule who had been paid $3,000 by a Nigerian man she knew only as “Osama” to go to Brazil and fly to Cambodia wearing the undergarments.
“If I had known it was drugs I would not have done it,” she said. Ms. Sangdao also said she had been duped by her Nigerian boyfriend to come to Phnom Penh to retrieve goods for him.
