Would-be drugs smuggler jailed for three years

A 25-year-old woman who attempted to smuggle cocaine valued at more than €300,000 into Ireland has been jailed for three years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Daria Suchanek from Poland, but with an an address at Stearne House, Patrick Street, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine valued at €304,000 at Dublin Airport on February 16, 2005.

Judge Michael White said Suchanek was a "clearly intelligent" woman who knew that what she was doing was wrong but she had co-operated fully with gardaí and he had received "impressive testimonials".

Garda James Sixsmith earlier told Mr Garret Baker BL, prosecuting, that Customs and Excise officials, acting on confidential information, stopped Suchanek when she arrived on a flight from Caracas in Venezuela via Milan.

A X-ray of her luggage revealed four large bottles containing cocaine in non-solid form which amounted to 4.35 kilos of the drug in powder form.

Suchanek told gardaí she had been aware that she was carrying drugs but did not know which type. She said that her Nigerian boyfriend in Dublin had asked her to make the trip to South America to transport the drugs.

Garda Sixsmith told Judge White that Suchanek, who has no previous convictions, spent nine days in Caracas where she was met by two men and given the bottles by a Dutch woman.

Garda Sixsmith agreed with Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, defending, that Suchanek had made a trip to Venezuela in December 2004 for a similar purpose but had panicked and backed out of the plan when asked to swallow capsules.

Garda Sixsmith said her boyfriend had been very unhappy with her and put pressure on her following this failure which had cost him €2,000 in travel expenses.

Garda Sixsmith agreed she was an "extremely naïve" person who had been "manipulated to a high degree".

Judge White heard that Suchanek had studied in her native Poland for two years before obtaining a university place in America. When her application to remain in the USA failed, she travelled to Ireland in 2004 and worked in a newsagent. She then met the Nigerian man who became her boyfriend.

Garda Sixsmith told Judge White that gardaí had been unable to trace this man as he had used a number of aliases and had taken all photographs of him from Suchanek before her trip to Venezuela for safe keeping. Gda Sixsmith said "perhaps he knew what he was doing".

Ms Kennedy said that her client had been "lonely, isolated and under pressure from him". She said Suchanek was "not a player at all in the drugs game" and had no idea of the value or nature of what she had carried into the country.