If it wasn’t for Susan Boyarski’s P addiction and pink hair, she might have got away with smuggling $5 million-worth of methamphetamine into New Zealand.
Single mum-of-three Susan (36) and fellow Canadian Tony* (25) were at the centre of one of the country’s biggest drug seizures when they attempted to smuggle 5kg of P packed into 43 plastic photo frames through Auckland Airport two years ago.
Sentenced to 10 years imprisonment at Auckland Region Women’s Correction Facility, 10,000km away from her family, Susan has plenty of time to count the cost of her actions. Looking back, she says she and Tony were an obvious target for customs given their state when they arrived in Auckland.
“We were both drug addicts so that had a big impact. I’d been both a dealer and a user at that point, and my life had been falling apart. You don’t see things clearly and you never think you’ll get caught. You don’t think about the consequences.
“I told him we had to sleep before we went so we wouldn’t look nervous and sketchy, but we didn’t. We stayed up for two days before we left and I didn’t sleep at all. It’s 30 hours of travelling from Vancouver via Hong Kong and we looked horrendous by the time we got here. We were also coming down pretty hard.
“The pink hair was a big mistake. I did that two weeks before I came here,” says Susan, who has been nicknamed “Pinky” by her fellow inmates. “If I hadn’t been on drugs and I’d been healthy, it might have worked – but then I wouldn’t have done it.”
Failing to meet the gaze of customs officers was another red flag and at Auckland Airport they were directed to a room for their bags to be searched. With her stomach churning and her hands shaking, Susan was sure they were going to be caught – but she was surprised when the drugs found in her suitcase turned out to be P.
“We were told that we were bringing in steroids. We knew it was illegal but it wasn’t until they opened our suitcases, broke open one of the picture frames and found methamphetamine that we found out what it was.
“I didn’t know it was in my luggage. I was told by the middleman that it would be divided between my co-offender’s suitcases. But when they opened my suitcase, there it was.
“I was devastated. I cried and cried for days. I just cried and slept.”
Susan says Tony, her best friend and flatmate, talked her into accompanying him on his drug-trafficking mission. He had agreed to smuggle steroids into New Zealand in return for about $8000, but was advised to take a travelling partner in an effort to avoid suspicion.
At first Susan rejected his pleas to travel with him but when he begged, “Please don’t let me do this alone,” she relented. “I thought it would kill me if he got caught, but then I didn’t think about my children and what effect it would have.”
Trying to fit into a prison in a foreign country has been hard for Susan but not as hard as never seeing her children, David (18), Jamie (15) and Jenny (12). Her fortnightly phone calls aren’t easy and her 12-year-old especially has trouble making conversation.
“It’s heartbreaking to think what she must be having to tell people,” says Susan, with tears welling in her eyes.
With just four visitors in two years (Tony’s mother and family friends), there’s little chance of a visit from her children because of the expense. “Listening to the girls in my unit calling their kids every day, I wish so much that I could, too,”” she says, her voice cracking.
Susan’s days are spent working in the prison library and reading self-help books. By keeping to herself she has escaped the attentions of prison bullies. “I tend to keep a wall up around myself. I’m not a confrontational person.
“I’ve really worked on myself this past year. I haven’t had counselling but I take responsibility for my actions. I’ve accepted my situation,” says Susan, who says she now considers her arrest a good thing.
“I’m extremely grateful that I got caught because it got me off drugs. I don’t know where I’d be now if I was still using. It’s probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”
Susan became a daily user following an emotional break-up with a boyfriend. “I told my friend, ‘Don’t let me do this for more than three weeks’ but it turned into three years. I thought I was in control but in 2006 things unravelled.”
Her video-store business failed, her car was repossessed and she started seeing less of her children. Susan saw her trip to New Zealand as a temporary escape. “oy friendship with Tony was strained and I thought the trip would repair it.”
Now her weekly letters from Tony who was also sentenced to 10 years in prison, is her only contact with him. They both have a non-parole period of five years, which Susan is in the process of appealing.
When she’s released, Susan will return immediately to Canada, where she plans to make a new start. She has already cut off contact with her drug-using friends.
Breaking down in tears, Susan says that she also wants to apologise to the people of New Zealand for “bringing P into this beautiful country”.
“It upsets me to think I almost brought that drug here. Being in prison, I see what kind of effects it has – the majority of the girls in here seem to have had something to do with P. I understand what a problem it is and it really upsets me to think that I almost contributed to it.”
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