A jury at the Montreal courthouse has begun hearing evidence in a case against a Vancouver woman charged with trying to smuggle more than seven kilograms of heroin into Canada through the airport in Dorval.
During the Crown’s opening statement on Tuesday, prosecutor Anne-Marie Manoukiane told the jury that Serena Khavita Narinesingh, 28, left Rwanda on a flight on July 16, 2015 and arrived at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval the following day. Her itinerary included layovers in Zurich and Brussels and when she arrived at Dorval she was unable to retrieve her two suitcases.
Serena Khavita Narinesingh told CBSA she was “a nanny from B.C.” when he asked what her occupation was.
She stayed at a Best Western Hotel while waiting for her suitcases to be located. While she stayed at the hotel, something about her suitcases attracted the attention of Canada Border Service Agency and an officer decided to search them thoroughly.
It turned out both suitcases had false bottoms, and Manoukiane said, when they were taken apart the CBSA and RCMP found 7.7 kilograms of heroin that was 39 per cent pure. While this was happening Narinesingh met with two men at her hotel.
The prosecutor told the jury they will hear from seven witnesses during the trial, including an expert on the heroin market in Montreal.
The first witness to testify, the CBSA officer who discovered the false bottoms on both of Narinesingh’s bags, said she told him she was “a nanny from B.C.” when he asked what her occupation was.
pcherry@postmedia.com
