A Queensland grandmother-of-nine will spend Christmas in a Brazilian jail cell accused of being a drug dealer.
Sunshine Coast woman Veronica Watson is currently being held at Santana Women’s Prison in Sao Paulo after she was arrested on December 1 as she prepared to leave the country.
But the daughter of 59-year-old Sam Watson, who lives in Western Sydney, told 7NEWS her mother was the victim of an online scam.
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Sam said she knew her mum was going on holiday last week but was “shocked” when she got the call informing her her mum had been detained.
“It doesn’t look real,” Sam told 7NEWS.
Veronica, who had never traveled outside Australia before, was arrested at the airport allegedly trying to leave Brazil with 1,483 grams of cocaine in a hidden compartment in her suitcase.
“I think she’s innocent because she’s always been against crime and drugs,” Sam said.
Victoria claims she was lured to Sao Paulo under the pretext of a business deal, asked to personally sign documents for an investment scheme that promised huge financial gain.
Sam told 7NEWS she heard about the deal and tried to warn her mother: “It sounded weird … I can’t believe she did it.”
Her husband of 16 years, Steven*, said Veronica met some people online who said they would pay for her holiday in Brazil because she was “the only one they trusted to sign some investment documents”.
He said she sprung him on the trip very suddenly, much the same way Sam was informed of the plan.
“I was at home … and we were sitting at the kitchen table and she came over and asked, is it okay to go to Brazil?” Stephen recalled.
“I said ‘what do you want to go to Brazil for?’ She says ‘I have to go there to sign papers.’ I said do you know what you are signing?
“I said, ‘how come they can’t send your paperwork here or find someone else?’ And she said, ‘I’m sorry, they believe me,'” he recalled.
“And I said, ‘How do you know these people?’ And then she says, ‘I’ve known her for a while. I met him online’. I said, but you don’t know him personally. You just met him. You don’t know what they are.
Steven said he asked Veronica what she would do if the documents were in Portuguese and she told him, “I’ll have someone explain.”
“I said, ‘that’s not enough’ … (but) she was adamant (she would) go,” he said.
He said her friends paid for the trip.
Stephen said he felt like a “wreck” and the situation was “unbelievable”.
“There are no words to describe how devastating this is,” he said.
Sam received a letter from her mother, sent from the overcrowded, underfunded prison where she is now being held.
“Hi Sam, it’s mom. I’m so sorry this happened,” she wrote.
“I didn’t know… I love you so much (sic).”
Officials from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs help Veronica in prison, but she faces a long and expensive legal battle.
After Veronica’s phone was seized and communications were cut off, Sam told 7NEWS that if he could talk to his mom, she would say, “I miss you mom, I love you, we’re all thinking of you and doing the best we can we can’.
*Last name withheld for privacy
