A Colombian drug mule has been jailed for eight years and fined €20,000 after pleading guilty to trafficking half a kilogramme of cocaine in 2012. 
 
Alexander Restrepo Diaz had been arrested at the airport in August 2012, on his arrival from the Netherlands.
 
A search found him to be carrying 52 capsules of cocaine in his underpants. The drug had a street value of some €40,000. 
 
Before Madam Justice Edwina Grima, he pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him, avoiding a trial by jury. 
 
The court heard how Mr Diaz had been promised €3,000 to deliver the cocaine from Eindhoven to Malta. The Colombian had told the police that he had met a man on a beach and had been enticed to make some easy money by carrying the drugs from The Netherlands.
 
The accused had visited Malta three times, the first two of which had with been with his wife and two children
 
During his arraignment, Police Inspector Johann Fenech had told the court that during the course of their investigations the police had found that Mr Diaz had been arrested in Spain carrying 800 grams of cocaine, also in his underpants, in 2005. 
 
Madam Justice Grima heard how Mr Diaz had travelled to Eindhoven from Malta, where he was handed the drug by two African men. He did not know who his Maltese contact was, except that he was a Colombian national, as he had only been given a meeting time and a place. 
 
She heard how Mr Diaz had accepted to help the police investigations by carrying out a controlled delivery of the drugs in Qawra but the police were wary of the repercussions since they knew nothing about the person on the other side of the deal. 
 
Madam Grima noted how the maximum punishment for drug trafficking was a life sentence but the law provided for a reduction in the eventuality of an early admission.
He was therefore jailed for eight years and fined €20,000, which unless paid immediately are automatically converted into an extra year in jail. Moreover, he was ordered to pay €5,142 in expenses related to the appointment of court experts.  
 
Moreover, as customary in serious drug trafficking convictions, the court also ordered the forfeiture of all his moveable and immovable property.
 

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