Metropolitan University

A suitcase with about two million pounds of cocaine was carried by a drug courier who tried to pass through the extensive security screening at the Edinburgh Airport in Scotland. 33-year-old Venita Randall claimed she took a holiday in Bolivia then made a remarkably unusual route to the United Kingdom through Amsterdam since the said route was cheaper. However, she was sentenced to ive years imprisonment by the Edinburgh High Court when she admitted she was involved in the drug supply confiscated in September 2009.

Laura Thomson, the advocate deputy, said the cocaine in Venita Randall’s luggage weighed 3.4 kilos and had 63 % of average purity. During that time, the typical street cocaine purity in the area was only 4%. The confiscated drugs could sum up to 54 kilograms if cut to 4% purity, and could bring in £2,160,000.

Lord Uist, the case judge, told Randall, “You must have been well aware of the risk you were running when you undertook to bring drugs into this country. The chain of supply of class ‘A’ drugs from South America could not operate without willing couriers such as yourself.”

Randall, who is from Upper Tulsehill, Brixton, London and studying at London Metropolitan University, was impeded by the officials of UK Border Agency when she was getting through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel, right after dismounting her plane. The x-ray showed suspicious blocks in Randall’s luggage and when an officer placed a barb into it, the luggage showed white powder traces.

Stuart Carson, the defendant’s solicitor advocate, said that Randall had borrowed £5000 and needed a means to repay it. Making the spree to Bolivia was her way to knock off a sum from her debt.