A Canadian woman accused of smuggling cannabis into Bermuda told police officers that she felt “tricked” and denied any knowledge of the drugs found in her suitcase.

Sandra Marrero-Guzman, 37, said in a police interview that a friend she identified as “Joe” had paid for her flight to Bermuda and she had agreed to take a suitcase to the island for one of his friends.

However, she said she was shocked to see packages of plant material in the luggage when it was opened by customs officers.

Asked how she felt at that moment, she said: “Tricked. Once again.”

A total of 29 packages were recovered containing a combined 12,876.4 grams of cannabis.

Ms Marrero-Guzman has denied conspiring to bring cannabis into Bermuda and possessing cannabis with intent to supply on June 20 last year.

This week, the court heard that Ms Marrero-Guzman was selected for a secondary search after she arrived in Bermuda on a flight from Toronto.

An X-ray of her checked luggage, a black hard-shell suitcase, revealed “anomalies” and customs officers immediately saw heat-sealed packages containing plant material when they opened it.

She later told police that she was given the suitcase as she arrived at the airport in Toronto. “I literally got out of the car, took the bag and checked in,” she added.

As the trial continued yesterday, the jury was shown footage of a police interview carried out the day after her arrest.

In the interview, Ms Marrero-Guzman said she was a self-employed exotic entertainer and that she had decided to travel to Bermuda for a holiday after a “rough” year.

She told the officers that while she booked the flight herself, her friend “Joe” had sent her the money for the flight and told her he had booked her a room at the Sandpiper Guest Apartments.

Ms Marrero-Guzman said: “It’s not unusual for someone to want to gift a trip or fly me out. It happens a lot.”

Asked about Joe, she said she had met him earlier that year in a shared Uber and became friends, bonding over their mutual love of cats.

Ms Marrero-Guzman said that before her trip Joe had asked her if she could take a suitcase with her to Bermuda for a friend on the island, to which she agreed.

On the morning of her flight, she said a friend of Joe’s picked her up in the Lakeshore area of Toronto and drove her to the airport, where he gave her the suitcase.

Asked what she thought was inside the suitcase, Ms Marrero-Guzman said clothing.

While she was able to provide only limited details about the individual who gave her the suitcase, she indicated that if she was given access to her phone she might be able to direct officers to a phone number.

Ms Marrero-Guzman said that she understood she was supposed to bring the suitcase with her to the apartment in Bermuda and Joe’s friend would collect it.

She told the officers that since her arrest, she had come to believe that Joe had seen her as an opportunity to better himself.

The defendant was also adamant that if police were to test the packages for fingerprints or DNA, they would find nothing linking them to her.

When informed by officers that there was no reservation under her name at the apartments, Ms Marrero-Guzman said she had no idea why that could be.

While she suggested the reservation could have been under a different name, she did not know what name that could be.

Ms Marrero-Guzman said the $2,320 in Canadian cash found in her possession was her own savings and although she had a bank card on her there was relatively little in that account.

Detective Constable O’Neil Swaby told the court that after the defendant was arrested he had contacted the owner of the Sandpiper Guest Apartments who confirmed that there were no reservations under the defendant’s name, nor were there any “no-shows” during that period.

The trial continues.

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