Two Jamaican women accused of smuggling two kilos of cocaine into The Bahamas from Panama pleaded guilty when they appeared before a magistrate yesterday.
Ionie Heron, 51, and Kerone Dawkins, 30, of Westmoreland, Jamaica, admitted trafficking drugs into the country on April 7 by wearing girdles with the cocaine stitched into the seats.
They left the courtroom in tears after Magistrate Andrew Forbes sentenced them to the mandatory minimum sentence of four years.
Though arrested separately, both women gave police similar accounts of how they became involved in the smuggling venture.
Heron and Dawkins claimed that they were approached by different men who offered them all-expenses paid trips to Panama.
Once in Panama, they were given the girdles and told they would travel to The Bahamas to deliver the cocaine before returning to Jamaica.
Heron was arrested at the Town Hotel, ASP Ercell Dorsett, the prosecutor, told the court.
Dorsett said officers went to the hotel with a search warrant and saw a person matching the informant's description of their target while speaking to the manager.
He said Heron was escorted to her room and the officers found the cocaine inside her carry-on bag.
The officers also seized $765.25 as the proceeds of crime.
Dawkins was arrested after she arrived in the country on a Copa Airlines flight from Panama.
Police arrested Dawkins at the airport because she matched the description provided by their informant.
During a search, police found the drugs stitched inside the seat of her girdle.
Dawkins told Forbes she was supposed to deliver the drugs to a person at the Grand Central Hotel.
She said she was promised $2,000.
Police arrested Dawkins with US$1,203 that the court ordered confiscated as the proceeds of crime.
By contrast, Heron claimed that she was not told about payment.
Forbes told the women the offenses attracted stiff penalties in Panama and Jamaica.
He said they should have considered how their actions would affect their lives and those of their families.
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