Cassie Sainsbury, 22, a personal trainer from Adelaide, is currently being detained in Colombia for drug trafficking after being caught with 5.8kg of cocaine as she tried to fly back to Australia.
However, the family of the young woman say she’s been set up and the only thing she’s guilty of is being “naïve”.
Her sister Khala said Cassie was on a working holiday in Colombia and was given packages she thought were headphones.
She said Cassie saw some headphones and decided to buy them as gifts for her bridal when a man said a friend could get them cheaper.
The cocaine was concealed in the packing of more than 15 headphones she was given the morning of her flight home.
“It came to her already packaged and concealed and she put it straight in her suitcase. She’s very naïve,” Khala told 9 News.
Cassie was planning a wedding next February to her fiancé Scott Broadbridge, 23.
Cassie with fiancé Scott Broadbridge. Source: Facebook
Her family have set up an online campaign to help bring her home.
“Cassie would never do anything like what she has been accused off[sic]”, the fundraising page reads. “Anyone that knows her, would say she is a kind, loving, happy kind of girl. She would help anyone out in need, Cassie is also a volunteer for the CFS.”
Cassie and her mum. Source: Facebook
It continues: “Cassie is facing 20-25 years in prison for a crime she did not commit. Our hearts break, because we know she is innocent, but stands little chance of proving it in such a corrupt country.”
According to her family, the personal trainer was denied bail and is being held at the overcrowded El Buen Pastor women’s prison until her hearing in two months.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed it was providing assistance to an Australian woman arrested in Colombia.
