CASSIE SAINSBURY - ‘I was too trusting'

NOW A FREE WOMAN IN COLOMBIA, THE CONVICTED DRUG MULE ADMITS SHE MADE A BIG MISTAKE

- April Glover

Cassie Sainsbury is finally ready to reveal the cold hard truth about the path that led her to trying to smuggle drugs out of Colombia. Now out of jail, Adelaide-born Cassie is light-years away from the scared and lonely 22-year-old who was arrested at Bogota Airport for stashing 5.8kg of cocaine inside boxes of headphones.

She’s now engaged to her prison lover Joli Pico and exudes a confidence that is a result of nearly three years of self-reflection behind bars. Speaking to WHO, Sainsbury says she has had a lot of time to think about her mistakes – and has made a very blunt admission. “People think I either have to be so stupid it’s not funny to not have figured it out, or I didn’t care. That’s the two camps people are in: I either didn’t care or I’m too stupid,” she says.

“But when you look at all the evidence, everything that got me to that moment, it wasn’t something where I just decided to go to Colombia and smuggle drugs. It was never like that.

“I was definitely way too trusting. It was something that was abused in prison. Everyone knew I was too trusting and that I’d believe everything I was told. That never turned out well for me.”