A WOMAN who smuggled tens of thousands of pounds of suspected drug money out of Jersey has been jailed for one year and nine months.
The Royal Court heard that 43-year-old Danielle Shields had made 15 return journeys from Liverpool since December 2023, smuggling out large quantities of cash each time.
Over the course of 15 months she was estimated to have laundered between £45,000 and £75,000 by taking it out of the Island.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, said last week that Shields had last arrived in Jersey on a flight from Liverpool on 7 February.
Shields told Customs and Immigration officers that she would be staying at the Royal Yacht hotel. She was carrying £20 cash and her son’s bank card, which she said she had permission to use.
However, the following day as she attempted to return to Liverpool she was stopped and searched.
She was found with £800 worth of gift cards, £360 worth of new clothes, a Tag Heuer watch costing £2,100 and £2,336 in cash. A further £1,360 cash was concealed inside her body.
Shields admitted that she had been paid to collect the money from unnamed individuals in Jersey and take it back to the UK – and had been doing so regularly.
Crown Advocate Hallam said: “It is overwhelmingly likely that this money came from the sale of drugs. Moving money is a key part of the illegal drugs trade.”
She suggested a jail sentence of two and a half years.
Shields has already spent 88 days in custody – equivalent to four and a half months with the one-third discount for a guilty plea – and Advocate James Bell, defending, argued for a community service order and probation order to cover the remaining period.
He pointed out that Shields had co-operated with the authorities, admitting her involvement, and said: “She was put under pressure to become involved in the activity that forms the basis of these charges. She got caught up in something which she does not intend to repeat.”
He added: “This has caused her to reprioritise. She will not come back to this court’s attention or the attention of any other court.”
He also said that Shields was vulnerable and had faced some problems in her personal life, and suggested: “A probation order and community service order would give her the support she doesn’t appear to have had over the years.”
Lieutenant-Bailiff Anthony Olsen said the Jurats noted that Shields was deemed at high risk of reoffending and told her: “These are very serious offences. You knew or strongly suspected that you were dealing with the proceeds of the sale of illegal drugs.”
However, he added that the Jurats felt the prosecution had not given the mitigating factors enough weight, so were reducing their proposed sentence.
Jurats Entwistle and Powell were sitting.
After the sentencing, Paul Le Monnier, senior manager at Jersey Customs and Immigration Service, said: “The seizure of the proceeds of crime definitely hurts the pockets of those involved in criminality and helps prevent and disrupt further criminality, including the importation of controlled drugs.
“Officers will not only target drug importations but will actively control passengers and goods outbound to seize criminal proceeds.”
