British couple face death after drug-smuggling ‘sting’ in Bali

Mrs Sandiford, a mother of two, was arrested on May 19 allegedly trying to
smuggle 11lb of cocaine into Bali’s international airport in the lining of
her suitcase.

Yesterday, it emerged that she had agreed to co-operate with the police, in an
attempt to reduce any future sentence and had given them details of the
British couple’s alleged involvement in the plot.

“The reason she co-operated was, we pointed out that if she stayed
silent, the whole illegal drug importation attempt would be on her shoulders,”
Made Wijaya, the head of customs at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport said.

Mrs Sandiford allegedly told drug squad officers that she had not met any of
the other gang members but had received instructions to go to a hotel by the
beach in Legian, near the fashionable area of Seminyak, and wait for a call.
Police decided to move her to a smaller hotel and told her to say the
original one was full.

Four days after her arrest, Mrs Sandiford received a call from Mr Ponder,
allegedly telling her to go to a small resort called Villa Lumbung Dumah
Buitan, in Candidasa on the island’s eas coast.

Mrs Sandiford was allegedly told the drugs would be collected from there by a
Thai contact linked to the people who had originally given her the cocaine
in Bangkok.

Police believe she was watched by the other suspects for a couple of days
before they approached her again.

Finally, at noon on May 25, Mr Ponder came to the villa to meet Sandiford,
police said. After picking up the drugs, which had been disguised as a
present in pink wrapping paper, police arrested him. A fourth Briton, named
as Paul Beales, was also arrested that day near to Candidasa in a separate
vehicle.

Mr Ponder was taken to the home he shared with Miss Dougall and their
daughter. A search of their rooms turned up two packets of Marlboro
cigarettes containing more cocaine, police said.

A friend of the couple described the police’s suggestion that they were part
of an “international network” of drug traffickers as “a joke”.

“She [Miss Dougall] is a party girl and I believe that she has been
caught up in this somehow. I think she has been coerced and wrapped up in a
bigger game than she really understood.”

Another expat said: “She always had these fabulous designer clothes on.
You’d see her dancing on the tables. She was the life of the party.”

News of the arrests shocked Bali’s large expat community, drawing comparisons
with the “Bali Nine”, a group of Australians jailed in 2005 for
trafficking heroin. Two of those Australians are now on death row and are
being held in the notorious Kerobokan jail to which the britons are likely
to be taken.

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