Canadian sentenced in 70K Ecstasy pill border bust
Jan 31, 2012, 3:41 PM
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – A Canadian woman caught trying to smuggle more than 70,000 tablets of Ecstasy into the U.S. by sticking them in her car’s gas tank has been sentenced in New York to nearly 16 years in prison.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Albany announced Tuesday that 34-year-old Tara Haynes, of Montreal, was sentenced Monday to 15 years and eight months in federal prison. She was convicted in August of attempting to import a controlled substance.
U.S. inspectors at the border crossing in Champlain in northern New York searched Haynes’ rental car in June and found the drugs vacuum-sealed and packed in the vehicle’s gas tank.
Her lawyer had argued that she didn’t know the drugs were there.
Authorities say the drugs were valued at $500,000 to $2.1 million.
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