Aussie grandma sentenced to death for drugs trafficking; claims victim of online scam

An Australian grandmother has been sentenced to death for smuggling 1.5kg of crystal methamphetamine while traveling from Melbourne to Shanghai.

Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, a 54-year-old Sydney resident, was in transit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in 2014 when she was caught with a backpack filled with the drugs.

Malaysian courts had initially acquitted the grandmother, after her lawyer successfully argued that Exposto was the victim of an online scam.

A prime target for smugglers, the naïve, lonely-hearted woman says was convinced to carry a backpack she was told contained only clothes to go and meet her online paramour, a man named Captain Daniel Smith.

Believing him to be a United States soldier based in Afghanistan, Exposto said the charming military man had “made [her] feel loved, he made [her] feel wanted,” and would send photos of himself to the grandmother. Love poems were read, and songs were sung by him over the phone.

Exposto said that Smith had asked to marry her in September 2013; however, she had never actually met him, nor could the courts prove that he even existed.

Customs officers discovered the drugs stitched into a compartment of her backpack, after she went through customs under the impression that she had “nothing to hide,” says her lawyer.

Convinced that she was indeed duped into being a would-be drugs mule, judge Dato’ Ghazali had ruled that she was not guilty, and subsequently she was referred to Malaysia’s Immigration department to be deported back to Australia.

However, she was unable to leave the country after case prosecutors decided to repeal the case, asking that the older woman instead be sentenced to death. The courts sided with the prosecution earlier today, ruling that Exposto was hereby sentenced to death for trafficking.

Her lawyers will be repealing the decision.

Absolutely sad for a woman who seems to be most guilty of being guileless in the nefarious ways of the world.

PLEASE, everyone, everywhere – never, ever, ever carry anything that isn’t packed by YOU and only YOU.