A criminology student who brought £20,000 of cannabis into the UK in exchange for a free holiday has walked free.
Kertania Odususi, 24, traveled to Edinburgh Airport from Thailand with huge amounts of of the drug stuffed into two suitcases in March last year.
Odususi was stopped by Border Force officials who used bolt cutters to open the cases where they discovered 40 vacuum sealed packages containing around 20 kilos of the Class B drug.
The university student, from Croydon, London, said she had been offered a free five day holiday in Thailand in return for bringing back a quantity of tobacco and denied knowing anything about the cannabis.
She was arrested and charged and has been on trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court this week accused of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a controlled drug and drug supply.
The trial was told Odususi – who is studying Criminology at London Metropolitan University – had flown from Thailand to Doha and taken a Qatar Airways flight to Edinburgh on March 16 last year.
She passed through passport control but was stopped by custom officials after picking up her luggage.
She told the officers she had packed the two suitcases herself but did not possess a key to open them.
The court heard the Border Force officers used a bolt cutter to prise open the cases and discovered the packages of cannabis inside.
The student was said to have fully cooperated with the police by handing over her phone and was subsequently arrested and charged.
DC Jonathan Atkinson told the court each package weighed around half a kilo and the drugs had a street value of £200,000.
Odususi told the jury she had been put in touch with a man who was arranging the flights and the exchange of suitcases by a ‘close friend’ in London.
She said she had been asked to travel to Thailand and fly back to Edinburgh with a suitcase of tobacco in return for a free holiday near to Bangkok.
She told the jury she was met by two men she did not know at her hotel on the day she was leaving and they put the two blue suitcases into her taxi.
Odususi said she had then been told she would then meet two men at Edinburgh Airport and hand over the luggage to them after she had landed.
When asked her reaction when she saw what she had been transporting, the student said: ‘My heart literally dropped in that moment, I panicked as I knew I was going to be arrested.
‘I was like, my life is over when I saw the suitcases open.
‘When they opened it I realised the grave mistake I had made.’
She broke down several times in the witness box and told the jury she had been ‘naive’ and ‘stupid’ for agreeing to the venture but denied having any knowledge of the drug stash.
Following the evidence the jury took around 60 minutes to return majority not proven verdicts on both charges and Odususi walked free from the dock yesterday.
