A Cus­toms Clerk who plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of co­caine for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing has been fined $35,000 or a nine-year im­pris­on­ment in de­fault.

The 36-year-old moth­er of two from Mor­vant ap­peared be­fore Ari­ma First Court Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael on Mon­day and was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Ker­ry Pan­tin.

Enam Safya Mkub­wa was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 19 at about 5.40 am by Woman Es­tate Con­sta­ble Balt­haz­ar of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty se­cu­ri­ty while at the check­point up­stairs the air­port by the last scan­ner. She was to board a flight to Bar­ba­dos.

The woman who was dressed in a Mus­lim garb was ob­served to be walk­ing in a weird man­ner. She was sub­se­quent­ly tak­en in­to a room where she was asked to re­move her cloth­ing. Two clear pack­ets of co­caine dropped out from her bra and two oth­er pack­ets al­so con­tain­ing co­caine were found in her tights just above her front pelvic area. The val­ue was es­ti­mat­ed at $456,000 and weighed 1.14 kilo­grammes.

Mkub­wa was ar­rest­ed and charged for pos­ses­sion of co­caine for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing, at­tempt­ing to ex­port pro­hib­it­ed goods and pack­ag­ing in a man­ner to de­ceive.

Af­ter her charges were read out to the court, Mkub­wa plead­ed guilty. Her at­tor­ney Pan­tin asked for mer­cy as he said his client al­lowed her­self to be used be­cause of pover­ty and lack if mon­ey. The at­tor­ney said that his client was a di­vorcee and need to have eye surgery done. He al­so not­ed that she had no pre­vi­ous charges and con­vic­tions.

How­ev­er, court pros­e­cu­tor Har­richan Kassie, se­nior state of­fi­cer at the Cus­toms and Ex­cise said be­ing a cus­toms clerk she ought to know the laws.

The mag­is­trate in sen­tenc­ing fined Mkub­wa $10,000 or 3 years for at­tempt­ing to ex­port pro­hib­it­ed items goods; $10,000 or 3 years for pack­ag­ing in a man­ner to de­ceive and $15,000 or 3 years for pos­ses­sion of co­caine for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

She was giv­en three months to pay the fine.