The manager of the Bogota hotel where accused drug trafficker Cassie Sainsbury spent her final night of freedom says she rarely left her room.
Ingrid Hernandez said the Australian-native drew attention from hotel staff as she arrived without a reservation and paid for her accommodation only two days at a time, reports Daily Telegraph.
“She was alone most of the time in her room. I remember once she went and brought McDonalds back to eat,” she said.
Cassie, 22, who worked as a personal trainer in Adelaide and is a former volunteer firefighter, is believed to have been in Colombia on a working holiday.
Ms Hernandez also described the man who is accused of tricking Cassie into packing 5.8kgs of cocaine into her suitcase, believing the package contained headphones for her bridal party.
“Normal height, normal build. He could have been in his late 20s, 30s. He had short brown gelled hair,” she said.
She added that the well-dressed Columbian male was Cassie’s only visitor at the $50 a night lodging.
Cassie was arrested after the drugs were discovered as she tried to fly home to Australia on April 11 from El Dorado International Airport. Image via 7 News.
Pictured are the 18 bags of cocaine found concealed within headphones in Cassie’s luggage. Image via 7 News.
The comments follow reports that the accused drug mule “owed thousands” in rent after she suddenly closed her personal training business, ‘Yorke’s Fitness.’
Residents from Yorketown, South Australia, claim she skipped town and a local florist says she “disappeared basically overnight” owing tens of thousands in debt, reports 7 News.
Another woman has also claimed Cassie owed money to several people after her business collapsed, reports The Advertiser.
Outside ‘York Fitness,’ Yorketown. Image via 7 News.
Cassie had been in China and Los Angeles in the days before her arrest in Colombia and drew the attention of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) when her plane ticket home to Australia via London was reportedly purchased last minute by an ‘unknown party’ in Hong Kong.
She is said to be “scared” and cries a lot as she remains in notoriously overcrowded El Buen Pastor Prison which is home to more than 50,000 criminals.
If she maintains her innocence, she faces a sentence of up to 20 years in a Colombian jail.
WATCH: Cassie Sainsbury is pictured next to the nearly six kilograms of cocaine found in her luggage. Post continues…
Speaking to The Australian, her father, Stuart Sainsbury, spoke of his nightmare:
“A father’s love is unconditional, it never stops regardless of what happens. I don’t believe she was a drug mule,” he said.
“She is my kid. What parent thinks of their kid as a drug mule? I just love her. I can’t change what’s happened, I just have to be here when she comes home.”
Cassie’s newly appointed Colombian lawyer Orlando Herran has claimed he could have her case presided over in 90 days if she admits to a level of guilt in the drug smuggling.
“She would have to present herself before authorities and (follow) rules of conduct and a series of controls,” Mr Herran told the ABC.
