A 20-year-old Brazilian drug mule lured by the promise of cash and sight-seeing in New Zealand will instead spend five years behind bars for smuggling $656,000 of cocaine into the country.
Lucas Pereira was sentenced to five years' in prison in the Manukau District Court yesterday after he was caught
posing as a tourist and trying to smuggle almost 1.9 kilograms of cocaine into New Zealand in May.
Customs officers arrested him at Auckland International Airport when a luggage search revealed the drugs stashed in the lining of both of his suitcases.
According to a Customs investigation, Pereira was approached at a party in Brazil in January and offered a large sum of money for carrying the drugs.
He was given $2000 and some extra cash for plane tickets and "sight-seeing" while he was in New Zealand.
