The Chiba District Court on Wednesday sentenced an Australian woman to six years in prison and ordered her to pay a ¥1 million ($6,650) fine for smuggling drugs into Japan, despite her claims that she was tricked into doing so by an online romance scammer.
The defendant, 58-year-old Donna Nelson, was caught at Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture in January 2023 with a suitcase containing 1.9 kilograms of methamphetamine, hidden behind a fake bottom of the suitcase, after an X-ray showed dozens of long green objects and airport officials then checked her luggage.
Nelson, the former chair of the Aboriginal-run Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service and director of the charity entity Pioneers Aboriginal Corp., has said that she was a victim of an online romance scam by a Nigerian man who identified himself as a Japanese resident named Kelly, whom she never met in person. Their correspondence lasted around two years from 2020 up to the time of her arrest.
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