Poor choices put Instagram babe behind bars for smuggling drugs
Canadian sentenced to eight years' jail in Australia
SYDNEY: Poor choices and dangerous men fuelled her expensive Instagram life.
Canadian Melina Roberge, 24, would post glamorous, sexy photos of herself and other women on a yacht in places like Bermuda and Tahiti and built up quite a following in the process.
But, those earlier choices came back to upend her life when the yacht, the MS Sea Princess, berthed in Sydney in August 2016.
The authorities raided it, and found 95kg of cocaine worth A$21 million (S$21.2 million) - the largest stash Australia has ever found on a commercial boat or plane, the BBC reported.
Roberge, her cabin-mate and former porn star Isabelle Lagace, and Andre Tamine - who were all on the yacht - were arrested.
Last Wednesday, Roberge was sentenced to eight years' jail by a New South Wales court. Lagace had been jailed in November for seven and a half years, while Tamine is awaiting trial.
Judge Kate Traill said: "It is a very sad indictment on her relative age group in society to seem to get self worth relative to posts on Instagram.
"It is sad they seek to attain such a vacuous existence where how many likes they receive are their currency."
Judge Traill, who also accepted that Roberge's motivation to do the drug run was financial, revealed that the offender had been sexually involved with the "sugar daddy" who recruited her, reported The Sun.
The judge said Roberge had been exploited by him.Said Judge Traill: "He charmed her and spoilt her and became intimately involved with her."
FIRST-CLASS CRUISE TICKETS
The 24-year-old also slept with men he introduced her to in nightclubs, the court heard.
Court documents show Roberge and Lagace flew first-class to Britain to join the yacht and act as the glamorous foil for the real business of drug smuggling. The two were given first-class cruise tickets worth US$20,000 and 4,000 euros spending money, the New York Post reported.
Roberge was told she would be acting as a decoy and was encouraged "to take pictures... in exotic locations and post them on Instagram to receive 'likes'".
The Sea Princess stopped at Bermuda, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Tahiti before berthing in Sydney six weeks later.
At one port in Peru, Roberge saw men make multiple trips ashore and realised they were smuggling cocaine, the New York Post reported.
But she stayed on, because she had been "excited" about taking the luxury trip, which she otherwise could not have afforded.
Roberge apologised in court to "the people of Australia".
She added that since her imprisonment she has "come across people struggling with addiction. I don't want to be part of that".
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