A woman who ingested €80,000 of cocaine was brought to a Dublin hospital after she told staff at the hotel where she was staying that she was concerned a pellet could burst.
Georgia Arante Rodrigues, 27, came forward from the District Court on signed guilty pleas to possession of cocaine for sale and supply on 30 August 2025.
Garda Jack McHugh told Maddie Grant BL, prosecuting, that gardaí were contacted after Rodrigues was brought to St Vincent's Hospital.
Rodrigues arrived in Ireland around three days earlier and checked into a hotel. She went to the hotel reception on 30 August and told staff using a translation app that she had ingested what she suspected to be cocaine pellets and was concerned they could have burst.
At the hospital, she handed over a handbag containing 99 pellets of cocaine wrapped in a towel. She passed one further pellet during her stay at the hospital. After caution, she repeated to gardaí what she told the hotel reception staff.
Rodrigues was arrested after being discharged from the hospital on 2 September last. She told gardaí that this was her first time in Ireland, having travelled from Brazil, and she was to give the pellets to someone she didn’t know, who was supposed to contact her.
She was cooperative with the investigation, with the court hearing that Rodrigues arrived on a tourist visa and had a return ticket to Brazil.
The court was told that Rodrigues was acting as a drugs mule and was due to receive the equivalent of €2,500 upon her return to Brazil. She has no previous convictions.
Gda McHugh agreed with Dean Kelly SC, defending, that his client was fully cooperative and gave some details about her background to gardaí.
Mr Kelly asked the court to consider his client’s early admissions and guilty plea.
He submitted that there is "something so jarring" that someone would take such a significant risk with their health, leaving aside the high risk of detection and imprisonment.
He noted that his client raised the alarm herself, acknowledging that she was concerned about the risk of an "agonising death" due to a pellet bursting or disintegrating in the digestive system.
His client has no addiction issues, very limited English and wishes to return to Brazil as soon as possible.
Imposing sentence, Judge Orla Crowe said Rodrigues "voluntarily assumed a significant risk to herself in deciding to become a drug mule for gain", which she didn’t receive.
The judge said it was a "highly organised operation" that Rodrigues took part in, noting that others would have booked a tourist visa, flights and accommodation for her.
Judge Crowe said this was a "very serious" matter, noting the harm caused to society by drugs.
Having considered the mitigation, including the difficulties serving a sentence in a foreign jurisdiction, Judge Crowe imposed a three-year sentence backdated to when Rodrigues went into custody.
