‘Drug lords made me do it’
ACCUSED drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury has completely changed her story about her Colombian arrest by making the explosive claim that she was threatened by a mystery international drugs syndicate to act as a cocaine mule – or her family would be hurt.
It comes amid new claims that the 22-year-old was a former sex worker who spent months working in a Western Sydney brothel in the lead up to her ill-fated Colombian trip.
After spending weeks pleading her innocence, Sainsbury has backflipped on her story that she had no idea there was cocaine in her suitcase when she was arrested in Colombia last month. She is now claiming she was “threatened” into becoming a mule by an international drugs syndicate.
But a former colleague of Sainsbury, who told Nine News she worked with her at brothel Club 220 near Penrith, has accused her of being a liar who once pretended her mother had died from MS.
The former colleague said she had donated money to Sainsbury to cover her mother’s funeral costs and was horrified to see images of her mother alive and well on television following her daughter’s arrest. “I just feel Cassandra is not the naive sweet little blonde girl that everybody thinks she is. She’s a very good liar,” the woman said.
According to the woman, Sainsbury worked as a “fly-in, fly-out” sex worker named “Claudia” from August to December last year travelling from Adelaide to Sydney.
It can also be revealed today the former personal trainer begged Colombian authorities and the Australian Federal Police to put her into a witness protection program.
The revelation was made in an eleventh-hour failed bid by her lawyers to stop Channel 7 broadcasting its interview with Sainsbury’s fiance Scott Broadbridge last night.
In a statement of claims lodged with the Federal Court of Australia, it was alleged Sainsbury had “fallen victim to an international drug trafficking syndicate” which “threatened her life and the life of her family if she did not comply with their demands”.
Sainsbury was arrested on April 13 at Bogota’s El Dorado Airport, allegedly with 5.8kg of cocaine her luggage.
According to her family, she had been in Colombia on a working holiday. Sainsbury had previously insisted she had no idea she was carrying the drugs, claiming she believed the 18 parcels of cocaine were headphones she’d bought as gifts from a mysterious man she’d met while sightseeing.
Club 220 refused to comment when contacted last night.