Grandmother Gets Death Sentence For Smuggling Crystal Meth Through Malaysian Airport

An Australian woman has been sentenced to death in Malaysia after a court found her guilty of smuggling drugs through the country’s airport, according to reports.

Authorities found Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 54, with 1.1 kilos (2.4 lb) of crystal methamphetamine on her person at an airport in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in December 2014. The grandmother, who has four children, was stopped before she boarded her departing flight from Shanghai to Melbourne.

She was found guilty of a 39B drug trafficking charge resulting in a mandatory death sentence by hanging in Malaysia. A panel of three judges unanimously threw out the previous ruling which found her not guilty of drug trafficking in 2017 by the Malaysian High Court, CNN reported. "A final appeal will be filed in Federal Court," said her lawyer.

Customs officers found the drugs concealed in the lining of a bag given to her by her then-boyfriend. The man, who she reportedly met online, claimed to be Cpt. Daniel Smith of the U.S. Special Forces, according to the Guardian.

In December 2017, Exposto was acquitted of the crime after a judge decided that the woman was in love with the man and that he fooled her into holding the bag, which she received while in Shanghai.

Exposto claimed that she was not aware of what the bag held, which she willfully had checked through airport security.

"The court believes the testimony of Maria in that she was an innocent carrier," Esposto's lawyer said. "She was tricked into carrying the bag because of what we now call the internet scam, internet romance."

Prosecutors filed an appeal earlier this year citing that Exposto should have been aware of what was in her bag. The judges ruled that the appeal was valid and found the woman to be guilty of the crime.

"It does not make sense that she was just helping someone she did not know carry something," prosecutors said during the appeal. "There were many opportunities for Maria to scrutinize the bag, which was given to her by someone she met only hours earlier. She should have been suspicious."