Venezuelan sculptress jailed for transporting cocaine

A budding Venezuelan sculptress has been jailed for seven years for transporting nearly 2kg of cocaine packed in hairspray cans into Ireland.

Judge Desmond Hogan suspended the final two years of Adriana Forero’s sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court considering she was "a courier and a courier only" and given her "traumatic" personal history in which her 28-year-old Venezuelan soap-star son was conceived during rape.

Forero (aged 47) of Caracas discovered her talent for sculpting in prison, where she has been in custody since her arrest for possessing 1.988g of cocaine worth €139, 160 in hairspray bottles at Dublin Airport on November 11, 2007.

Garda Damien Rogers told prosecution counsel, Mr Sean Guerin BL, that the former Venezuelan taxi driver pleaded guilty to possessing the cocaine at the earliest possible opportunity and offered to help gardaí catch the drug dealers who were to take the cocaine off her at a Dublin hotel.

Gda Rogers explained that gardaí weren’t able to accede due to "logistical reasons."

He said Forero, who also ran a small perfume business in her home town, claimed her boyfriend gave her the toilet bag with four hairspray cans of drugs and arranged her transport to Ireland, promising her €10, 000 for the job.

He added that Forero had €1,200 of her own money which she had accumulated over several years on the Venezuelan black market.

Gda Rogers agreed with defence counsel, Mr Patrick Marrinan SC (with Ms Martina Baxter BL) that his client’s "supposed" boyfriend used her as a drugs mule and was never heard from again once she was taken into custody.

He further agreed that Forero has "made huge steps toward rehabilitation" and her newly discovered talent for sculpting had impressed prison authorities.

Mr Marrinan stated that he was so impressed by his client’s artistic abilities that he wished to show the court a piece of her work, but was refused by the prison.

He asked the judge to consider that his client didn’t seek to diminish her role in the offence by claiming she was acting under duress but was frank about "doing it for the money".

He said his client had a troubled upbringing, that her natural father died when she was a toddler and that she was brutally raped when she was 15-years-old which resulted in the birth of her son.

He said Forero raised the boy with her the help of her mother and that she was afraid she will miss out on being a grandmother to his children while in Irish prison.

Mr Marrinan appealed to the judge that his client was more isolated than Irish prisoners being so far away from family and home and that her sister’s death from cancer last year had greatly upset her.

Judge Hogan acknowledged that Forero’s lack of support incarcerated in a foreign country and backdated the sentence to November 2007.