A 19-year-old aspiring model and Sunday school teacher from Canada has been sentenced to at least three years behind bars for her role in smuggling 8.1kg of cocaine into Australia.
Porscha Wade was the last of a group of five people, aged between 19 and 27, to be sentenced in connection with the drug importation ring allegedly lead by former Vice Canada music editor Yaroslav Pastukhov.
Wade, dressed in white with her hair tied back in two buns, apologised for her role in the smuggling ring from the witness box during her sentencing hearing at the Downing Centre District Court on Thursday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A 19-year-old aspiring model and Sunday school teacher from Canada has been sentenced to at least three years behind bars for her role in smuggling 8.1kg of cocaine into Australia
Five people have been sentenced in connection with the drug importation ring allegedly lead by former Vice Canada music editor Yaroslav Pastukhov (pictured left and right)
‘I was a role model in the church. Little kids look up to me and I just feel like I’ve let everyone down,’ she told the hearing.
‘I will definitely carry this with me for the rest of my life.’
Judge Dina Yehia, SC was told during her hearing that Wade was influenced by Pastukhov, a charismatic figure in the Toronto hipster scene, who would bribe people with status or threaten them to get what he wanted.
She believed she was being sent to Australia on a modelling trip after her then boyfriend, known as ‘Pope’, also a model, arranged the trip and introduced her to Pastukhov.
Five people were arrested in total after police found $6.6 million worth of cocaine in 22 parcels hidden inside the linings of three suitcases on board an American Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Sydney on December 22, 2015.
Toronto DJ Jordan Mykel Gardner, 27, said a Mexican drug cartel gangster met him in Las Vegas, where the drugs were arranged to be picked up from, and confronted him with a gun. He was sentenced to a minimum four year and four month jail term.
New York-based model Nathaniel Brandon Carty, 23, said he was blackmailed into the smuggling plot and then threatened with violence when he tried to back out.
He was sentenced to a minimum three years and four months behind bars.
Music promoter Robert Wang, 25, will spend at least four years behind bars, while events management worker Kutiba Senusi, 24, was handed a four year and four month sentence.
The four were all sentenced in October last year for importing commercial quantities of cocaine.
Toronto DJ Jordan Mykel Gardner (pictured), 27, was sentenced in October 2017 for his role in the smuggling ring
Gardner (pictured) was a former roommate of Pastukhov and was starting to become well known at the time of his arrest
Wade, now 21 after already serving over two years behind bars, was sentenced to at least three years with a maximum term of six years and nine months under the same charge for her minor role in the syndicate.
In a December 14, 2015 meeting, recorded by Wang before the flight, Pastukhov allegedly said: ‘This is the most gangsterish thing that you will ever do.’
In February last year, three journalists at Vice, including a freelancer, an intern and a full-time member of staff, claimed to the National Post that Pastukhov had offered them $10,000 to carry suitcases to Australia.
Pastukhov, 26, has never faced any charges over the drug smuggling ring and the allegations against him have never been tested in court.
New York model Nathaniel Brandon Carty (pictured), 23, was also sentenced over the cocaine found aboard a flight from Las Vegas to Sydney
Carty posted this to social media from Las Vegas in the days before he boarded the plane
Pastukhov was fired from his role with Vice Canada after word of his alleged involvement in the international drug smuggling operation spread following the arrests in Australia.
‘Upon learning of these allegations in early 2016, Vice Canada took immediate and swift action to address these claims through our Human Resources department, enlisting an employment law specialist to consult throughout and engaging an outside criminal law firm to conduct an investigation on our behalf and contact the Toronto Police Service,’ said Vice Canada’s head of communications Chris Ball in a statement at the time of Pastukhov’s firing.
‘Based on the results of the internal investigation the employee was promptly terminated on February 16th, 2016.’
Police found $6.6 million worth of cocaine in 22 parcels hidden inside the linings of three suitcases
Pastukhov (pictured) was fired from his role with Vice Canada after word of his alleged involvement in the drug smuggling operation spread following the arrests in Australia