A Netflix reality star has avoided jail after she was caught trying to smuggle £150,000 worth of drugs into the UK on a flight back from Thailand.
Olga Bednarska, 27, was arrested in October after being stopped by customs officers at Manchester Airport with two large suitcases containing 40kg of cannabis.
According to The Manchester Evening News, the Too Hot to Handle star claimed she was given the bags by a friend called ‘Tex’.
The influencer, who appeared in series three of the hit Netflix show, claimed this person paid for her flights and wanted her to bring back designer clothes and watches from Phuket.
A court heard that Bednarska, from Poland but living in Manchester, had ‘lived beyond her means’ and accumulated £16,000 of debt.
To pay this off, she had resorted to crime and agreed to fly to Thailand on an all-expenses paid trip to import designer items out of the country in return for £18,000.
Bednarska cried in court as she was spared prison after pleading guilty to being concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class B drug.
Samuel Eskdale, prosecuting, said Bednarska was stopped by Border Force officials on October 20 and confirmed she had packed the bags herself.
But she then later told officials she had been given the bags at the airport and was unable to unlock the suitcase as she did not have the code.
Mr Eskdale said: ‘She was then asked who paid for her flights and she said her friend named “Tex”. She said they wanted her to bring back designer clothes and watches.
‘The officers asked her to unlock the suitcases, but she could not provide the code to do so. She then confirmed she had been given the suitcases at the airport.’
When the cases were finally opened, vacuum sealed bags of cannabis were found hidden beneath her clothes.
