A Filipina in Hong Kong has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to the charge of trafficking dangerous drugs.
In a report by Hong Kong News, Florence de Pedro, 40, a former saleslady, has had two prior convictions for breach of condition of stay and whose only means of livelihood was helping a drug dealer manufacture and distribute illegal substance.
De Pedro first arrived in 1993, and in the following year, she married a local Chinese man, with whom she had one child. For some reason, de Pedro was only able to secure a dependant visa and was unable to become a Hong Kong permanent resident. After her marriage ended in 1999, she was employed as a saleslady at a shop in World-Wide House in Central, Hong Kong and was paid HK$5,500 salary until 2002.
By 2001, she entered into a relationship with a Pakistani man who is a Hong Kong permanent resident and eventually had five children with him. In 2013, the Pakistani man was remanded in jail custody for drug trafficking and served two-and-half years in jail. During that time de Pedro’s stay in Hong Kong was in recognizance and was barred from engaging in any paid work by the Immigration Department. Without the ability to support her children, authorities have also put them under government’s care.
De Pedro was then introduced to a certain Cynthia C. or Azo who provided the woman with a room to stay, along with free food and utilities. Azo was reportedly involved in manufacturing drugs, and de Pedro would be paid HK$500 a day to deliver the illegal substance.
In 2015, while de Pedro was leaving the room, she was intercepted by operatives armed with search warrant found 498 grams of a mixture of cocaine, heroin and ketamine placed in 40 plastic bags and some on an electronic scale, metal sleeve and chopsticks. Also found in the flat were packaging paraphernalia, a booklet containing the suspected dangerous drugs record, and a video recording of De Pedro’s communication with “Azo”.
Presented before the court on March 4, de Pedro’s lawyer sought leniency from Deputy high Court Judge S. D’Almada Remedios, saying the Filipina did not realize the gravity of the offense she committed.
The judge, however, said that looking at the photos of the room when it was searched by cops “there’s a hell lot of drugs [in there].”
“When her Pakistani boyfriend was remanded in jail, the government took her children because [authorities] knew she had no way to support herself. She stupidly, foolishly chose this way to maintain her living. She is no drug addict, and she only used ice when her boyfriend gave it to her,” De Pedro’s lawyer argued.
The defendant also expressed her remorse over her involvement in the illegal drugs trade.
While judge D’Almada Remedios acknowledged the “difficult situation” that de Pedro was in, she also said the defendant should have realized the gravity of her offense as her Pakistani boyfriend was in jail for the same crime.
Given the amount of illegal drugs recovered in her possession, the judge sentenced de Pedro 16 years and six months in prison. This, however, was discounted to 11 years after she pleaded guilty to the charge.