Woman, 64, caught at New York airport carrying dried FISH stuffed with three kilos of heroin is sentenced to 27 months

The heroin was stuffed inside dried fish

Rose Amanor, 64, tried to smuggle 3 kilos of heroin hidden in dried fish into the US   

Caught last year by JFK customs agents who found her fishy
Denied a sentence of time served by NYC prosecutors Friday 

 

New York City prosecutors sentenced a 64-year-old Ghanaian woman to more than two years in prison Friday for stuffing heroin inside dried fish and trying to smuggle the drug-filled treats into the United States.

The fishy smuggler was caught by officials at John F. Kennedy airport with three kilos of heroin, after an attentive customs agent singled her out for inspection upon her arrival last February on a flight from Amsterdam originating in Ghana, the New York Daily News reported.

Rose Amanor's 27-month sentence was short compared to the six-and-a-half years in prison prosecutors originally threatened.

 

Rose Amanor, 64 ried to smuggle heroin stuffed inside dried fish (below) into New York City but was busted and sentenced to 27 months in prison

Trying to excuse herself, the woman blamed her son for coercing her to bring the heroin to the US, according to the Daily News.

'I am asking you to have mercy on me so I can go home to my family and enjoy whatever time I have left with my family,' the woman said through an interpreter.

But the judge called her out on what he referred to as an 'incessant number of fish stories' told to authorities. 

'I find it totally incredible that Mrs. Amanor didn't know what it was that she was doing,' federal judge Eric Vitaliano said according to the Daily News. 

'It certainly was a disrespect for the law, sitting in this courtroom and spinning this incredible tale under oath.' 

Amanor, who has been in custody for 13 months, had her request of a sentence of time served denied, and will be deported to Ghana upon her release from prison.  

Prosecutors sentenced a woman to 27 months in prison for trying to smuggle heroin into the United States by stuffing the drugs into dried fish (pictured) 

Amanor claimed she needed a Twi interpreter for the court proceedings despite the fact that English is the national language of Ghana, and when she was arrested she was carrying two Bibles, a dietary nutrition plan, and other documents written in English, and had received numerous emails from her son written in English.

Through the interpreter, Amanor told the judge: "I am asking you to have mercy on me so I can go home to my family and enjoy whatever time I have left with my family."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bini told the judge that the government did not oppose a sentence that was lower than the federal guidelines, but did oppose giving her time served because she committed perjury on the witness stand and because of the large amount of heroin she was caught carrying.