82-year-old Evdocia ‘Effie’ Phelivanidis has denied she knew of any cocaine at her home in Adelaide, South Australia, after becoming one of the oldest Australians charged with drug trafficking offences.
According to The Advertiser, Ms Phelivanidis and her grandson, Kosta Phelivanidis, 30, were arrested on February 1 after armed police raided her home in Flinders Park.
The police were acting as part of an investigation into the attempted importation of 8kg of cocaine worth more than $3.2 million.
The two were subsequently charged with attempting to traffic in a large commercial quantity of cocaine.
On Friday, Ms Phelivanidis broke her silence on the charges and told 7 News she didn’t know why police arrested her.
Ms Phelivanidis said she told police she had “never even smoked a cigarette” and she didn’t know what was in a box allegedly found by police at her home containing drugs.
“It was just a box with sticks inside, I don’t know,” the mother of two and grandmother of six said. “I don’t know [if it was dropped] by the post office man or a different man.”
Under state law, the maximum penalty if found guilty of trafficking in a large commercial quantity of a controlled drug, such as cocaine, is life imprisonment, a $1 million fine or both.
The pair will appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court in April.
Source: The Advertiser
