Jose Ribeiro ‘could easily have died’
A drug smuggler who swallowed 12 packages of cocaine made it through customs but almost died after one of them burst inside his body.
Jose Ribeiro, 54, took an ‘extraordinary risk’ to his own health for a ‘relatively modest saving’. A judge said he was satisfied that Ribeiro had swallowed the class A drugs to take them for his own personal use, after buying them in Portugal and flying back home to Manchester.
Manchester Crown Court was told that cocaine is cheaper in Portugal than the UK. There was no evidence that Ribeiro was intending on selling the drugs, a judge ruled. Ribeiro, who lives in Bolton, is set to walk free after spending almost three months in prison on remand.
Prosecutors told how Ribeiro had travelled to Lisbon from Manchester Airport in January. A few days later he made the return journey and returned to his home.
His partner drove him to the Royal Bolton Hospital on January 26 after he complained of feeling unwell. Police officers were there for an unrelated matter, when Ribeiro arrived complaining of ‘chest palpitations’. He told his partner that the police ‘were going to get him’, and they left A&E.
But he returned a few hours later after his condition deteriorated. He ended up in intensive care and in an induced coma.
Family members told medics that Ribeiro, a British citizen who has lived in the UK for six years, had admitted that he’d swallowed packages of cocaine which he’d bought while in Portugal visiting his family.
They discovered he had swallowed 12 packages, and there were concerns that he could suffer a brain injury, disability or even death. Eight of the packages were surgically removed.
Doctors decided not to carry out any further surgery. He passed the remaining four packages on January 31.
The drugs which he had ingested weighed 37.89g, said to be worth just under £4,000 on the streets in the UK. Prosecutor Brian Berlyne said there was evidence that cocaine costs less in Portugal than in the UK.
After being discharged from hospital on February 3, Ribeiro was questioned by police and said the drugs were for his own use. Mr Berlyne questioned why Ribeiro would take such a risk for a ‘relatively modest saving’.
But Judge Nicholas Dean KC, the Honorary Recorder of Manchester, said there was no evidence that Ribeiro was planning on selling the drugs for profit. Defending, Keira Shaw said that Ribeiro had ‘nearly lost his life as a result of his actions’.
She told the judge that Ribeiro, who had no previous convictions, had spent 86 days in prison, a spell which Judge Dean said there ‘didn’t seem any purpose in extending’. The judge told him: “I hope you have learnt your lesson by what occurred.”
“I swear to God, I’m never going to do it again,” Ribeiro said as he appeared by video link from prison. The judge continued: “I accept, for what it’s worth, that you brought the drugs in by swallowing them in order to use cocaine for your own personal use, not to sell the drugs.
“You paid the price of that. You could easily have died. You are fortunate that you didn’t. That, in a sense, is your fault, but on the other hand it is clearly a form of punishment.”
Ribeiro, of Whowell Fold, Bolton, pleaded guilty to importing a class A drug. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for a year, and ordered to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work.