A Canadian sex worker on trial for allegedly smuggling $1.3 million of cannabis to the island told the Supreme Court there was an insider at Bermuda’s airport to help with the plot.

Sandra Marrero-Guzman, 37, took to the witness box for the final time yesterday and denied being a “drugs courier”. She also dismissed allegations by the Crown she was in debt and due a $7,000 inducement.

She has been charged with importing nearly 13 kilograms of cannabis in a suitcase containing 29 heat-sealed packages of the drug with a reported street value of almost $1.3 million. There was a total of 12,876 grams of the drug.

Ms Marrero-Guzman pleaded not guilty to conspiring with others to bring cannabis into the country and possessing cannabis with intent to supply on June 20 last year.

Prosecutor Khadija Beddeau asked the accused: “Would you agree that an insider helped in getting these drugs through?”

She replied: “Correct.”

The prosecutor then said: “I suggest you were acting as a drugs courier.”

Ms Marrero-Guzman answered: “I don’t agree.”

Ms Beddeau continued: “The reason you were prepared to take that risk was because you needed that money.”

She replied: “I don’t agree.”

Earlier Ms Marrero-Guzman told the court, in response to the accusation of being a drugs “mule” for $7,000: “I never came to Bermuda on an agreement for $7,000, so that’s incorrect.”

Asked if she checked her bag containing drugs into the airport in Canada, Ms Marrero-Guzman said: “I don’t agree with that. I took a bag that I thought was clothes.”

Ms Beddeau pressed her on the role she played in the importation, asking: “You were acting as a courier?”

Ms Marrero-Guzman hesitated before replying: “If it helps, I guess that’s correct.”

Ms Beddeau asked: “You don’t know what you were? You do understand what a courier is in general? Carrying for other people, carrying from one location to another.”

She answered: “I don’t think of myself as a courier.”

The court heard of the mystery man referred to only as “Anton” who fixed up Ms Marrero-Guzman’s flight and accommodation to Bermuda and was to set her up to have sex with wealthy clients.

He offered her $7,000 for a “quick trip to the islands” and allegedly packed the suitcase with the cannabis packages — but told her it was designer clothes, claiming Bermuda lacked stores selling such items.

Ms Marrero-Guzman maintained she never knew there were drugs in the luggage and had nothing to do with packing the bag.

She insisted she never looked inside the case and was unaware of the combination for the lock. It had to be forced open at LF Wade International Airport by customs officers.

In her closing remarks, Ms Beddeau asked the jury: “What does your common sense tell you?

“She was a high-paid escort, a high-paid sex worker and there is nothing wrong with that. She’s used to dealing with high sums of money. She claims to be duped, taken advantage of. She was in a considerable amount of debt, with only $100 on her credit card.

“By her own admission she had worked in a law firm for three years as a paralegal and she also did some criminal law so she would have been interacting through the course of her day and had a working idea of the legal system.”

She added: “What does your common sense tell you? She said it was clothing and men’s clothing, but she didn’t ask. She was bringing it in for someone she didn’t know. She didn’t even know if he was picking her up, or if he was at the airport.

“More importantly that suitcase was collected [in Canada] from someone she didn’t know and she was picked up at a random location [before being driven to the airport].

“And you ask yourself, is this not showing co-ordination and co-operation then carrying the stuff? Think about it.”

Ms Marrero-Guzman’s defence lawyer, Susan Mulligan, said: “You may not like what she does for a living, but it doesn’t make her a drug courier. It doesn’t make her a liar.

“So you have to consider very carefully that she did her very best to answer all the questions, she admitted what was necessary to admit, admitted to us things she didn’t have to and admitted details she did not have to give.”

Ms Mulligan then asked the jury if they had ever taken something from one country to another for a relative.

“Something like, my aunt didn’t want to pay all that money to have a pair of shoes shipped so I would take them,” she added.

“Would you necessarily open up a package to make sure it was the item, like a teddy bear for a relative? Would you break the lock on a case? Would you unwrap a package?

“Would you have your suspicions for someone you are having a relationship with? Would you stop and have a little look through it? Why would you do it?

“She didn’t.”

Ms Mulligan added: “As an experienced traveller, she knew if she was caught she would go to prison and knew the consequences. She knew all of these things … so why would she carry, knowing herself that drugs were in that luggage?”

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