Yoshe Taylor spent six years inside a Cambodian jail after heroin was planted in her bag. Photo / Facebook
Yoshe Taylor spent six years inside a Cambodian jail after heroin was planted in her bag. Photo / Facebook
An Australian mother of two travelled to Cambodia to meet her "soul mate" and on her return flight stuffed 2kg of heroin into the lining of her bag.
Yoshe Taylor first met the 43-year-old South African businessman in 2013 on a dating app where he used the name, Precious Max. They quickly hit it off and after he promised Taylor love and wealth, she couldn't turn down the opportunity to go visit him in Cambodia.
Yoshe Taylor first met 'Precious Max' who was really a 24-year-old Nigerian whose real name was Precious Chineme Nwoko. Photo / Facebook
Little did the Aussie mum know that Precious Max was not the man she had fallen in love with, but a then-24-year-old Nigerian whose real name was Precious Chineme Nwoko.
Taylor revealed to the ABC that she was desperate to find love.
"I had been all by myself for a long time, four years, just me and the kids.
"I was talking to him for a long time. I thought I got to know him and he seemed very nice."
Precious Max offered Taylor the chance to run an arts and craft shop in Queensland. As a very broke mother of two young children, she was excited by the idea and soon she would be travelling to and from Cambodia with sample products.
Taylor recalls that she emptied the bag and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
On her third trip leaving Phnom Penh airport, she heard her name called out and a police officer asked her to step into a room.
"He went straight for the backpack and he pulled out the materials and then he got out a Stanley knife and cut down the spine of the bag and that was when I saw the powder," she recalls.
The seemingly innocent business start-up came to an end by September 2013 when innocent Taylor was locked up in a Cambodian jail facing charges of international drug smuggling.
There were more than 2kg of heroin concealed in the bag
Taylor was sent to the notorious Prey Sar Prison for six years where she shared a cell with 99 other women. She reveals that the cell was overcrowded and most women were forced to sleep spooned up against each other.
There were also only three toilet bowls at the end of the room. "No wall, no curtains, no plumbing. They're just toilet bowls on the floor," Taylor said.
"I knew I wasn't important so I didn't think anyone would do anything to help me," she told ABC in an interview. "I was a mushroom, I didn't know what was going on."
In April 2014, Taylor's trial emerged and she was sentenced to 23 years.
Yoshe Taylor spent six years inside a Cambodian jail after heroin was planted in her bag. Photo / Facebook
"I did not want to spend 23 years away from my children. I actually thought the death penalty was a much better idea than being in jail for 23 years," Taylor told ABC.
She has shared her unimaginable story in hope to warn others. "If one person is protected because they've seen the story, if it can save one other Australian, I'll be really happy," she says.
Around the same time the fraudster had played Taylor, he was also targeting a Melbourne woman, identified by the pseudonym Kay Smith, ABC reveals.
"Hello love, just wanted to say goodnight and sweet dreams … love you so much and forever," Precious Max wrote to Kay Smith one night.
Smith had also been to visit Precious Max and had unwittingly returned from her first trip to Cambodia in August 2013 with 2kg of heroin concealed in the lining of two laptop bags.
Smith spent six months in the Dame Phyllis Frost women's prison and then 18 months on bail before the charges against her were dropped.
The women were not aware of each other's existence as they were both falling in love with the South African businessman.
As Taylor's interrogation started, Precious Chineme Nwoko's home was raided by police where they found multiple stashes of drugs and cash in his home and he was sentenced to 27 years in jail.
While Smith was detained on Australian soil, when she heard of Taylor's arrest, she suspected that she had been caught in the same scam, which eventually became the catalyst for Taylor's release.
