Tourist mistakenly charged of drug importation

She was arrested on March 13 at Melbourne Airport and charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.

A sniffer dog indicated a positive result for narcotics when checking the ice tea containers. Three normal 800g bags of Nestle iced tea that she bought from Manila, was tested positive to a swab and a presumptive test.

It was only after she spent five days in custody, that further tests by Federal Police forensic team found the 'drugs' were in fact powdered lemon-flavoured ice tea.

Defence barrister Michael Penna-Rees said there had previously been incidents of the tea being wrongly identified as drug, which in this case was wrongly identified as methylamphetamine and then amphetamine.

Silva is paid with $5000 for her ordeal.

According to Penna-Rees, Silva was traumatized of being put in cells with serious offenders, and experiencing five days in the awful situation having her liberty taken away. She was not allowed to contact family or friends during her custody.

Silva is a wedding planner in her home country, she is involved in a family business where her mother is a wedding singer and the father is a wedding musician.