WILLEMSTAD – The Court of First Instance has sentenced a 53-year-old man to four years in prison, with one year suspended, for his role in a failed drug trafficking operation in which an elderly woman in a wheelchair was used as a drug courier.
The woman had traveled from Santo Domingo to Curaçao and was scheduled to continue her journey to Brussels carrying nearly one kilogram of cocaine concealed in 50 swallowed pellets.
According to the court, the trafficking attempt failed when the woman arrived at Curaçao International Airport (Hato), where immigration authorities refused to allow her to continue her trip because she was traveling without the required escort.
After she was denied boarding, the convicted man picked her up from the airport and helped search for someone who could accompany her on the next leg of her journey.
The defendant maintained that he had no knowledge of the drug smuggling operation, but the court rejected his explanation as not credible.
Shortly after leaving the airport, the woman disappeared. More than a week later, her body was discovered wrapped in a sheet behind a shipping container in the Sabana Hundu area.
Although the court established the man's involvement in the drug trafficking operation, it acquitted him of any involvement in the woman's death and the concealment of her body. The judge noted that investigators were unable to determine either the exact cause of death or when she died, making it impossible to establish criminal responsibility for those offenses.
A second suspect, a 49-year-old man, was acquitted of all charges due to insufficient evidence.
Both the Public Prosecution Service and the convicted man have 14 days to file an appeal against the judgment.