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In 2017, Cassie Sainsbury was sentenced to six years in a Colombian prison. This is her life now.

Warning: This post deals with sexual assault.

Three years after being released from Colombia's notorious El Buen women's prison, Cassie Sainsbury's life looks very different.

The 27-year-old, who was sentenced to six years behind bars in 2017 after she was caught with 5.8kg of cocaine hidden in her luggage at Bogota airport, returned to Australia in 2022 and has made an appearance on SAS Australia

In the opening episode of the series, Cassie explained how the experience reminded her of prison.

"I spent three years in a Colombian jail and it's just... all very triggering," Sainsbury said during an interrogation interview.

"I'm trying to deal with it as it comes, but it's not easy."

Cassie also said she was targeted in prison and was "almost sure that someone was going to kill me there".

"Even the way that we eat food, the way we sleep, the guards there are very much the same... they yell at us; we're a number," she told the show's directing staff.

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Cassie quit during the show's second episode, after being unable to face crawling through a tunnel filled with water.

As she left, she spoke about leaving her 'Cocaine Cassie' moniker behind.

"It is one of the first times in a long time that I feel proud of myself in the sense of facing everything that I didn't ever want to see again. 

"When I leave the SAS course, 'Cocaine Cassie' dies there. That's it. She doesn't follow me around anymore.

"I'm just Cassie, but I am the Cassie who has gone through a lot. I've come out the other side stronger, with more resilience, and I hope to be able to prove everyone wrong."

According to New Idea, while most of the 2023 season's cast received up to $30,000, Cassie was one of the highest paid cast members this year. In the past, the highest paid cast members, including Wayne Carey, Sam Burgess and Schapelle Corby reportedly received between $150,000 to $250,000 each.

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What did Cassie Sainsbury do?

In 2022, Cassie spoke to 7NEWS Spotlight in 2022 about the crime that made her a household name in Australia.

She said her time working in a "gentleman's club" in Sydney first led her down a path of delivering drugs. 

Cassie said she applied for the job after she saw an ad on Gumtree advertising an hourly commission rate and flexible working hours.

"I didn't realise it was actually a brothel, because it said 'gentleman's club', and so I imagined a bar," she explained. 

Instead, she spent the next two months doing sex work, which she described as "one of the worst things that I have experienced". 

Watch: Cassie Sainsbury on 7NEWS Spotlight. Post continues below. 

Unhappy with the job, Cassie told Spotlight the brothel madam put her in touch with a man named Joshua who was looking for workers to make deliveries. 

He asked her to deliver envelopes from the brothel and drop them off at a number of businesses in Sydney's CBD, including an orthodontist. 

"I was very naïve," said Cassie, who explained she believed the envelopes simply contained documents. 

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Joshua later told Cassie he had international work for her, which involved a delivery to London with another girl. 

"I look back at it now and I'm such an idiot, to be honest, that I didn't see it," she said. "I really thought that I was actually going to be going with this girl... we were told to receive documents and I thought that he couldn't send her alone because he didn't want her going alone overseas."

Cassie only realised after she received her plane ticket, that she was actually flying to Bogota, the capital of Colombia, instead of London. The ticket was also one way. 

When she called Joshua to find out what was going on, she was told it was simply a "minor hiccup". 

After arriving in Bogota, she met a man named Angelo, who claimed he knew Joshua and asked her to take a package back to Australia. 

"I said 'well, what's the package? Because I've never taken packages.' And he said: 'well, that's not really something you need to have all the details of'," she recalled. 

Scared, Cassie said she began looking for flights out of the country but was later spotted and taken to Angelo's apartment where he drugged and sexually assaulted her.

She was then given a large bag to bring back to Australia. Cassie admitted she knew the bag contained cocaine but said she "didn't see a way out".

When she later arrived at the airport to the board the flight, she was arrested by Colombian authorities and sentenced to six years in jail with a $130,000 fine. 

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The ever-changing Cassie Sainsbury story.

Cassie Sainsbury was initially facing 30 years in jail when she was caught trying to fly out of the country with cocaine stuffed into 18 headphones hidden in her luggage.

Her story changed multiple times before sentencing, but in a 60 Minutes interview, she said she was threatened by Angelo to go ahead with the plan. 

Evidence of the threats made against her existed, Cassie told 60 Minutes in 2017, with messages and photographs sitting in her WhatsApp account showing how she was forced to comply in a scheme she never thought involved drugs until it was too late.

The problem was, Cassie's Android phone was locked with a number pattern. And she said she couldn't remember the passcode. She once again said she couldn't remember the code in a 2020 interview.

On top of this, Cassie's family were also telling different stories. On the same night in May 2017, her mother and her sister spoke to Channel Nine while her then fiancé, father and uncle spoke to Channel Seven. There were claims she was "100 per cent innocent" and also claims that she was "fully aware of what she was doing".

For months, the story changed and every now and again new ones would pop up: She was going to London. She was getting married. Her boyfriend was involved. He wasn't involved. She was a sex worker in Sydney. Her business had failed. She needed the money. She was an unaware drug mule.

Then in November 2017, Sainsbury struck a plea deal with authorities and was sentenced to six years.

When asked how to explain what happened to her — whether it was due to naivety, stupidity or bad luck — Cassie said there were multiple explanations.

"It's a mix between being desperate, being stupid and wanting to try and do something to get ahead," she told 60 Minutes in 2020.

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"And I came out worse."

When she was arrested and sent to prison her partner, Scott Broadbridge, vowed to stick by her, but on KIIS FM in 2018 Cassie Sainsbury confirmed that they had broken up.

Image: Facebook.

"For quite some time things weren't good between us… From the moment I got in here [jail] the relationship was doomed," she told Kyle & Jackie O.

"I broke up with Scott because I thought it was the best thing for me, and the best thing for his future as well."

Cassie Sainsbury's time behind bars and prison romance. 

During an Instagram Live in 2020, Cassie opened up about her time behind bars, saying she'd seen "the worst ways people treat each other".

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"I've seen people stabbed hundreds of times," she shared. "They had knives stuck into them. It's absolutely horrible."

Cassie also found love with another prisoner, named Joli, during her time in prison. 

Speaking to New Idea from inside the prison in 2019, Cassie said she didn't expect to find love but her relationship with her "funny, very outgoing" fiance Joli blossomed and they slowly fell in love.

Cassie said Joli proposed to her following a soccer match at the prison.

"I walked to the passageway and she had a poster on the wall which said, 'Will you marry me?'" Cassie said.

"A huge amount of people were watching me. She doesn't speak English, she was trying to learn English to propose. It was quite cute. I said yes, of course."

However, the relationship ended following her release.

"Unfortunately, things with Joli didn't last. Basically, I came out of prison and she became a different person," she later told Stav, Abby & Matt.

In prison, Cassie embraced a regular exercise routine and competed in a beauty pageant to celebrate the annual Day of the Mercedes (the patron saint of prisons), dressed as 80s Madonna.

She worked as an English teacher, studying Spanish and taking classes with volunteer groups.

The director of the Michigan School in Bogota, Carlos Carrero, told News Corp Cassie was a "blessing" and wanted to turn her life around. 

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Cassie Sainsbury's time on parole in Bogota. 

In April 2020, Cassie was released from prison to serve the remainder of her six-year sentence on parole in Bogota.

Colombia's president signed a decree to see 4000 prisoners released into home detention, amid fears of overcrowding during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The house arrest was approved for prisoners who had completed 40 per cent of their sentences.

"I miss my family and the beaches," she said at the time, according to News Corp. 

In August 2020, Cassie's mother wrote on Facebook her daughter was struggling to make ends meet in Colombia.

"I need our government to help this kid. I can't fight the Colombian judicial system by myself. I need them to help her while she is in the country. Or help me get her home," she wrote, per the Daily Mail.

"Cassie receives no help from our government during this pandemic. She cannot work, etc."

That same year, there were rumours circulating that Cassie was selling explicit photos on OnlyFans to make money for necessities. However, Cassie denied those claims. 

Speaking to Stav, Abby & Matt on B105, Cassie explained: "I did not receive any money at all for any photos. The photos exist yes, but I was not paid for photos. 

"I'd never even heard of this page (OnlyFans) until I got hordes of messages asking for my OnlyFans ID," she said. 

The 27-year-old also shared that during her 27 months inside, she had access to all social media except Facebook. 

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"I generally didn't post anything because not many people kept in touch with me," she shared.

Cassie Sainsbury's marriage and arrival back in Australia.

When Cassie returned to Adelaide in 2022, she said she felt like she had "matured a lot".

"I see the city differently, I see the state differently, I see everything differently now," she told 7News Spotlight. 

She also returned a married woman. 

In April 2022, Cassie tied the knot with her now-wife Tatiana, a 34-year-old computer technician. 

The pair met in a nightclub in Colombia. At the time, Tatiana was initially unaware of Cassie's past. 

Cassie later told her on their second date.

"She told me that it was my past and that she couldn't judge me on my past because everybody has a past," Cassie explained.

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She now works as a personal trainer in Adelaide.

Following her withdrawal from SAS Australia, Cassie shared a message for that version of herself on Instagram.

She was damaged, broken inside. Filled with shame, disappointment and a ridiculous amount of pain. She had been running from who she was, hiding because the hate sometimes was all too much,' she wrote.

"This person you see in the photo, she faced and relived traumas that she didn’t wish to ever live again, but she did it because that girl would never give up - she couldn’t. She wanted to become stronger, to EVOLVE."

Her final words as she left the series were: "See you Cocaine Cassie".

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. 

This article was originally published in December 2019 and has since been updated with new information.

Feature image: Facebook/Channel 7.