By Vir B. Lumicao
A Filipina call center agent arrested last July at Hong Kong
International Airport for allegedly carrying suspected cocaine in her handbag,
pleaded guilty on Apr 18 to a charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug.
Ann Raian Cruz, 37, entered her guilty plea before Eastern
Court Magistrate Jason Wan, who said she would now be committed to the Court of
First Instance, which will schedule her sentencing.
Cruz, a single mother who came to Hong Kong as a tourist on
July 30, was ordered remanded in custody and told she could apply for bail
before the High Court. Her arrest was the first reported drug trafficking to
Hong Kong originating at Ninoy Aquino International Airport since the Duterte
administration assumed power on July 1.
Customs officers allegedly found about 610 grams of
suspected cocaine concealed in her handbag. After “washing,” the seized drug
was confirmed to be 508 grams of cocaine with a street value of $694,565.
When asked where she got the bag, Cruz allegedly told
investigators she bought it for Php 400 from a friend named Jenny on her way to
the Manila airport on July 30.
But in a letter she wrote to prison chaplain Father John
Wotherspoon in August last year, Cruz said the bag was a last-minute present
that her African boyfriend, Chris Williams, told her to pick up from another
Filipina while she was on a taxicab to the airport.
Cruz said Williams had instructed her to give the woman Php
400 for taxi fare. The African also allegedly told her to use the bag as he
wanted to see her carrying it when he joined her the next day in Hong Kong .
The Filipina said she met Williams a few months earlier in
the online dating site Twoo where he introduced himself as a businessman.
She said the trip to Hong Kong
was an idea of her boyfriend, who allegedly told her he wanted her to travel
with him on business trips abroad. But their original plan to travel together
on Jul 29 fell through when the man failed to show up at the airport for their
6pm flight, allegedly due to a business meeting.
Consulate staff who interviewed Cruz in jail shortly after
her arrest confirmed she passed through NAIA Terminal 3 security unchallenged
until she boarded a Cebu Pacific flight to Hong Kong.
Airport authorities have since tightened security.
Two couriers flying in from the Philippines
on Sept 4 and Oct 7 last year were intercepted in Hong Kong. They were a
Colombian female and a Brazilian male transiting Manila. Each yielded more than
3kg of cocaine hidden in their luggage.
