A judge has handed a former Vice music writer and editor a nine-year prison sentence for recruiting and arranging for five people, including an intern at the Toronto-based online media company, to smuggle an “immense” amount of cocaine into Australia.

In September, Yaroslav Pastukhov pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to import cocaine into Australia. He was 23 at the time of the conspiracy, which stretched over two months.

Five drug mules were caught at the Sydney airport on Dec. 22, 2015, with a total of 40 kilograms cocaine worth about $20 million, hidden in the lining of their suitcases.

In her reasons for sentence, Ontario Court Justice Heather Pringle provided some context to the case as Pastukhov, a tall, bald man, wearing a thick black beard, listened in court with his mother seated a few rows back.

In 2014, Vice hired Pastukhov — who called himself Slava Pastuk — to cover the music scene in Toronto. He “found the glamour, the famous people and the club life appealing,” Pringle said.

Pastukhov also hoped “to embed himself into the narrative of a cocaine importation scheme, write about it, and break his journalism career wide open,” the judge continued. “This misguided ambition got him criminally charged and dragged down others with him.”

In 2015, Pastukhov callously solicited several people to become drug couriers, including “exploiting” Vice intern Robert Wang, who hoped to build on his networking connection to promote his own music career, Pringle stated.

Pastukhov told Wang the smuggling plan “was easy and the money was good, so good he had done it himself” weeks before. Wang would get $10,000 to split with a travel companion and $2,000 in spending money. Wang surreptitiously audio-recorded the meeting on his mobile phone, according to the agreed statement of facts filed with the court.

Pastukhov also recruited four others, including his roommate, a woman he described as “an international model,” an American man, and another Canadian man.

When intercepted, all five had Pastukhov’s contact information in their phones, the agreed statement of facts says. Some co-operated with police and identified Pastukhov. An alleged co-conspirator remains before the courts. The couriers were convicted and received various sentences in Australia.

The Crown asked that Pastukhov receive a 12-year penitentiary sentence; his defence recommended the judge impose a sentence of between six to eight years.

Pringle said she found that Pastukhov wasn’t a courier, so a sentence on the lower end wasn’t applicable, nor was he a principal player. She said it was obvious there were people much higher up the ladder in the U.S. and Australia instructing him on what to do. She described Pastukhov as “nothing more than a dispensable middle man.”

She also cited his lack of sophistication, exemplified by his use of inexperienced couriers, with whom he was in frequent and “undisguised” contact. As an example, Pringle cited a text Pastukhov sent to Wang: “Buddy who plans the trips comes to town on Thursday so let’s sit down before then.”

As well, Pastukhov “encountered” the drug importation scheme while researching a story for Vice, as opposed to developing “a separate level of underworld connections on his own volition.”

Still, Pringle said she did not want to diminish his moral blameworthiness.

“He exploited his relationship with these couriers, including Mr. Wang’s dreams of working in the music industry. Mr. Wang and the others were victims, albeit willing ones, of Mr. Pastukhov’s criminal offending.”

In her ruling, Pringle praised Pastukhov’s mother for passing on her work ethic to her son after they came to Canada from Ukraine when he was young.

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After she finished reading her decision, Pringle addressed Pastukhov and his mother directly.

While the sentence “is almost a third” of Pastukhov’s life, the strength of their mother-son relationship “is going to carry you through these years,” she told them.