EXCLUSIVE
Convicted drug mule Cassie Sainsbury is expected to be embroiled in a new legal battle following the publication of her new tell-all memoir this month.
The 29-year-old – better known as ‘Cocaine Cassie’ – has promised that the book will provide a gruesome, uncensored account of her time locked up in a Colombian prison after she was caught trying to steal 5.8kg of the illegal drug from the to prison smuggling. country.
But legal experts warned the Commonwealth was likely to move to claw back the profits the debut author made from her autobiography under strict proceeds of crime provisions that prevent criminals from cashing in on their notoriety.
Sainsbury spent three years with 1,800 other criminals in the infamous El Buren Pastor women’s prison on the outskirts of Bogota after being arrested at the city’s El Dorado airport in April 2017.
During that time, she claims she became a prime target for other inmates and was repeatedly ‘beaten’, ‘stabbed’ and ‘raped’.
Sainsbury was released in April 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic, amid fears of overcrowding, and served a further two years on parole before being deported.
The former brothel owner said she had spent the past four years struggling with the trauma of the “dark world” she found herself in after her failed international smuggling campaign and was “finally ready” to tell her full story.
A promotional copy for her book claims that “the woman the world would come to know as ‘Cocaine Cassie’ survived abuse, stabbings and rape as her story played out in public, distorted by lies and exaggerations that unfolded over the course of over the years.
Cassandra Sainsbury has revealed she is releasing a memoir about the three harrowing years she spent in a Colombian prison after being convicted of drug smuggling
The then 22-year-old was arrested in 2017 at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota with 5.8 kg of cocaine in 18 headphones.
“Now Cocaine Cassie, in her own words, sets the record straight in this raw and harrowing account of what it was really like. Bruised, battered and scarred, she tells how she was forced to become a drug courier.
‘It is a story about pain and loss of hope for a future. But it is also a story about her rise to forgiveness and redemption – to creating a life where a woman’s past does not define her future.
“I’m not ‘Cocaine Cassie.’ I’m Cassie Sainsbury.’
Ironically, given the last line of the promotion, the upcoming book is called ‘Cocaine Cassie’, and will be released on October 15th by publisher New Holland.
Suggestions that the former Adelaide fitness instructor is “finally ready” to reveal the truth about her sordid past has raised eyebrows, given the numerous tell-all interviews she has already given to Nine’s 60 Minutes and Seven’s Spotlight programs.
During those extended appearances – which took place both during her captivity in Colombia and since her return to Australia – Sainsbury claimed she had run the botched drug after her family’s lives were threatened.
In an infamous interview with then 60 Minutes reporter Liam Bartlett inside the walls of El Buren Pastor women’s prison in 2017, she claimed she had all the evidence to clear her name on her cell phone, but she couldn’t remember her passcode.
Speaking to Seven’s Ross Coulthart in 2022, she claimed she had been recruited into the smuggling operation while working as a receptionist at a brothel in Sydney’s west and had previously transported illegal packages across Australia.
‘Cocaine Cassie’ Sainsbury, now 29, claims she’s ‘finally ready’ to tell the whole truth about her time behind bars – despite giving numerous interviews about it
Sainsbury’s upcoming book is called ‘Cocaine Cassie’, even though the convicted drug mule says she rails against the name
‘Cassie’s situation comparable to that of Schapelle’
Although there has long been speculation that Sainsbury was paid for all her television interviews and for her appearance on reality fitness show SAS Australia last year, no action has been taken against her so far.
The Australian Federal Police has previously shown its determination to prevent high-profile criminals from profiting from their misdeeds.
The AFP has been launched legal action against Schapelle Corby in 2006 when she wrote a similar memoir, My Story, while serving a prison sentence in Bali’s Kerobokan prison for attempting to smuggle 4.1 kg of cannabis into Indonesia.
Although the copyright for the book had been transferred to Corby’s sister, Mercedes, and co-author, Kathryn Bonella, the Commonwealth managed to seize nearly $128,000 in payments to the convicted drug mule’s family.
The AFP also raided Channel Seven’s Sydney headquarters in February 2014, looking for evidence that the network wanted to pay Corby for an upcoming interview following her release from prison.
Leading Sydney lawyer Richard Mitry said Sainsbury’s forthcoming memoir was likely to provoke the same response and could land her back in court.
“Under federal proceeds of crime legislation, someone who has committed a criminal offense – such as drug trafficking – is prohibited from obtaining what is defined as ‘literary proceeds’ in relation to the crime,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Now, literary profits are basically any financial benefit that someone gets from the commercial exploitation of his fame or, in other words, his fame as a result of his crimes – and that includes publishing books and giving interviews.
‘Cassie Sainsbury’s situation is therefore very similar to that of Schapelle Corby.
Co-convicted drug mule Schapelle Corby was accused of trying to take advantage of her criminal notoriety
The Commonwealth managed to seize $128,000 in payments to Corby’s family after she wrote an autobiography while behind bars for drug smuggling in Bali.
‘(Schapelle) was convicted of drug trafficking and wrote a book about it, and the Commonwealth – in that case the AFP – managed to confiscate her royalties.
‘I honestly don’t see why Sainsbury would be treated any differently.
“The only significant counter consideration is that if they are concerned, it would cost the taxpayer $100,000 in legal fees to potentially seize something like $50,000.
“But ultimately I think it comes down to a matter of principle and the desire to send a strong message to deter someone else from trying to do the same thing.”
Neither Corby nor her publishers wanted to question whether they had taken the proceeds from crime into account when negotiating the book deal.
Under the law, it is not illegal for Sainsbury’s publishers – or commercial television networks – to pay her for her story; only for her to profit from its sale.
Australian Federal Police raided the Seven network’s offices in Sydney in February 2014 looking for evidence that the channel paid her for an upcoming tell-all.
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks had $10,000 in book sales payments frozen for more than a decade under crime laws before the Commonwealth dropped the case
The AFP has not confirmed whether it plans to freeze payments Sainsbury receives in connection with the book.
David Hicks, who was captured by US forces in Afghanistan in 2001 after training with Al Qaeda, was also subjected to the proceeds of crime laws.
Hicks served six years in Guantanamo Bay before being transferred to Australia to complete a sentence imposed by a US military court for supporting terrorism.
In 2001, the Commonwealth announced that it had begun using the proceeds of crime actions following Hicks’ autobiography Guantánamo: My Journey, which had sold approximately 30,000 copies.
About $10,000 in payments for book sales to Hicks’ family were frozen, but the Commonwealth dropped the case in 2012 after claiming his conviction was illegal.