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The five were caught at the airport in Sydney and sentenced to prison there.

He said he previously made a similar — but successful — trip, picking up luggage in Las Vegas with cocaine glued into the lining, and delivering it undetected. He tried to back out but he feared for his safety from others in the drug networks, court heard, so he pressed ahead with a delivery.

Even knowing the fear and pressure of making the trip, he still went on to recruit others to courier the bricks of high-grade cocaine for the unnamed organization.

Dan Kirby, Pastukhov’s lawyer, said his client was just a broker in the larger drug network and only made arrangements for a few friends who volunteered to go.

“He was clearly nowhere near the top” of the ring’s hierarchy, Kirby said. If some of the drug mules felt threatened, he said, it was not by Pastukhov, whom he described as a non-violent person.

The education I’ve had as a result of having to rebuild from scratch was almost worth going through the scandal, and I’m ultimately better off for it

At the time, Pastukhov was the high-profile music editor for Vice Canada, a popular, youth-oriented media outlet. Prior to Pastukhov’s arrest, the National Post detailed allegations from six additional people in Canada, primarily young journalists working at Vice, who said Pastukhov unsuccessfully tried to recruit them as couriers. He has not been charged in relation to those claims.

As a first-time offender with excellent prospects for rehabilitation who pleaded guilty, Pastukhov deserves a sentence in the six to eight year range, Kirby said.

Faiyaz Alibhai, prosecutor with the Anti-Organized Crime Team of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, said Pastukhov’s account was a self-serving version of events.