Slovakian woman gets three years for smuggling opium

Mystery man ‘Mike’ paid for her trip to Vancouver, gave suitcases to deliver

A chance encounter in an Istanbul cafe with a mysterious man named Mike has landed a Slovakian woman in a B.C. prison for three years.

Iveta Scheuer, 50, has been convicted of smuggling 2.6 kilos of opium into Canada in late 2016, hidden in the sides of two suitcases.

When the opium was discovered by airport officials, Scheuer claimed she had no idea what she’d been carrying. She also gave two different versions of how and why she had come to B.C.

She later testified in her own defence in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming that mystery man Mike “paid for her trip to Vancouver, gave her the suitcases, and asked her to deliver them to an unnamed individual at a hotel here,” Justice Lisa Warren wrote in a sentencing decision released this week.

“She testified that Mike told her she would be contacted by someone once she got to the hotel and this person would come to the hotel to collect the suitcases. She had an empty bag packed in the suitcases that was to be used to transport her belongings back home, after leaving the two suitcases here. She testified that she did not know the opium was in the suitcases.”

A jury didn’t believe Scheuer, convicting her of importation of the opium, as well as possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Scheuer told the court that Mike was Arabic and spoke German. He appeared to be in his late 30s. He took her sightseeing.

She gave him her phone number, but he did not give her his number or provide details of his business. After she returned to Germany, he contacted her and invited her to visit him in Frankfurt. She did.

“Sometime after that he invited her to Istanbul and during that trip, on his suggestion, they then made a trip to Tokyo,” Warren said.

There were other trips to Ankara and Tokyo.

“She testified that Mike paid most of the costs associated with

Without someone prepared to carry the suitcases, the drugs would not find their way into this community.

these trips, that he gave her pocket money and bought her things, but that he had never before asked her to take anything with her.”

After the second trip to Japan, Mike called her again and suggested she go to Vancouver, the ruling said.

“She testified that he arranged for money to be given to her in Germany for her to purchase tickets to travel first to Istanbul and then to Vancouver.”

She flew to Istanbul on Nov. 23, 2016, then travelled on to Vancouver four days later.

She said she asked Mike what was in the suitcases and he replied:

“You don’t need to know — it’s not a bad thing.”

She testified that Mike told her he would pay her €3,000 when she got back from Vancouver. She also said she didn’t wonder why he was willing to pay her and that she was “happy” to get the money.

The opium was estimated to be worth between $40,000 and $70,000.

The twice-divorced mother of an adult son worked in Germany as a hospital cleaner.

Warren gave Scheuer 584 days’ credit for her time in pre-trial custody, for a net sentence of 511 days.

The judge said that while Scheuer was not the mastermind of the smuggling plot, “her role was a necessary one.”

“Without someone prepared to carry the suitcases, the drugs would not find their way into this community,” Warren said. “Profit was clearly her motive and, in my view, this is an aggravating factor.”