An n mother-of-five has been jailed for 16 years in a Taiwan after heroin and cocaine totalling 7kg were found in her luggage when she entered the country.
Debbie Voulgaris, 58, was detained at Taoyuan International Airport on December 10, 2023 after the drugs were detected in black bags inside a hidden compartment in her suitcase.
She initially ‘vehemently denied’ she knew the drugs – worth about $1.9million – were there, but during the lengthy court process she pleaded guilty, reported local media.
According to facts tendered to Taoyuan District Court, she had landed in Malaysia on December 8, 2023 on a flight from .
There, she met a group of people from an unidentified drug syndicate who gave her the suitcase and she then travelled on to Taiwan.
Smuggling ‘Class A’ drugs into Taiwan has a maximum penalty of death or life in prison, however, her sentence was reduced because of her admission, the family’s difficult financial situation, and the fact the drugs had not made it to the street.
Ms Voulgaris will be deported upon completing her sentence or receiving a pardon, meaning she will get the chance to return home to her five children.
The family had initially raised the alarm after they lost contact with her while she was overseas, and they later found out she had been arrested.
They launched a Change.org petition claiming she was wrongly accused and campaigning for her release and, later, a GoFundMe attempting to raise money to travel to see her and help with her legal fees.
‘Everyone who knows her, knows that she is a pure and kind person… We urge you to sign the petition… to restore her freedom and let her return to the arms of her family,’ the petition read.
Ms Voulgaris claimed her ex-husband John, based in , had known the contacts in Malaysia and he was summoned to appear during her court proceedings, but he did not show.
‘We don’t know anything about bloody drugs and have never seen or touched them in our lives,’ he previously told Daily Mail .
In April last year, Ms Voulgaris admitted she had been recruited by the drug syndicate and was paid about $2,800 as well as given flights and accommodation.
Her lawyer Leon Huang told the ABC she had minimal knowledge of the syndicate.
‘The deal that Miss Voulgaris got was actually pretty bad – red-eye flights and then she was sent to Malaysia to stay in really crappy hotel for a day or two, and then she flew over to Taipei,’ he said.
‘And the so-called compensation that she was offered was minimal … so I think I believe her statements … she’s been used as a mule or something like that in the international drug transportation network, and we see a lot of examples like this.’