‘Cocaine Cassie’ Sainsbury opens up on post-traumatic stress, her toned new figure, plans to start a family and how she was spat on in the street when she returned to Australia

Convicted drug smuggler ‘Cocaine Cassie’ Sainsbury has opened up about the struggles she has faced since returning to Australia.

Sainsbury, 28, returned to Adelaide 12 months ago after spending years in a Colombian prison for trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country.

Since her return, she has been harassed on the streets, diagnosed with PTSD and continues to suffer from chronic stomach problems after falling ill in the infamous El Buen Pastor women’s prison.

In April 2017, Sainsbury was found with 5.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase while on holiday.

Sainsbury spent three years behind bars before she was able to return to Australia, where she now lives with her wife Tatiana and regularly visits her therapist.

The drug smuggler told me the advertiser that it was her psychologist who told her she had post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I had never really expressed emotions before, I just got through it,” she told the publication.

Sainsbury said this way of coping took a heavy toll on her as she continued to adapt to life at home.

Her experience in prison is an obvious cause of her condition: she almost died after a bacterial infection ravaged her stomach, causing her to lose almost 70 pounds (30 kg).

She spent two weeks in hospital and ended up weighing just 39kg by the time she returned to prison.

The infection still affects her to this day in the form of irritable bowel syndrome.

But she said Tatiana, who she met in a Colombian nightclub and married in March 2022, helped her recover from the trauma of her prison sentence.

Returning home to Adelaide was a final hurdle for Sainsbury to overcome, which she said was difficult.

People recognize her when she walks down the street and work is difficult to find.

‘At the beginning of January I had an incident when someone recognized me on the street. They called me a murderer and spat in my face,” she said.

Sainsbury has also said that making new friends is a struggle because of her shame as a convict.

‘Some people recognize me, others don’t. To be honest, I still keep to myself a lot. It is what it is,” she said.

But now that life is returning to normal, she has confirmed that she and Tatiana are keen to start a family and are looking for new ventures of their own.

Sainsbury, a personal trainer who once owned a gym on the Yorke Peninsula, has recently launched her own online fitness programme, Cassie Leigh Fitness.

She tests her rigorous training regimens on herself before taking them to the platform.

The couple also want to start a new body sculpting business, based on a Brazilian technique Sainsbury learned while living in Colombia.

Sainsbury spent 27 months on probation in the country after leaving prison due to Colombia’s strict parole conditions.

The aim is not to get too muscular, says Sainsbury, but to help themselves and others learn to love themselves and their bodies.