Monday, July 17, 2006
Dimwit Express
This story is actually a bit dated, but I came across it again and haven't found out what happened to the women involved.
It seems that a pair of former prostitutes from South Florida came up with what they thought was a great idea to make some really big money. Remember the movie Midnight Express, the story of a kid named Billy Hayes who got busted for trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey? Sure you do.
Well, these two ladies thought it might be profitable to smuggle drugs into Turkey. And they apparently wanted to make an impression, as they were busted with 25 kilograms of cocaine.
So what kind of time were they looking at? The basic penalty for importing narcotics without a license is 10-20 years in prison, plus a few more years for possession. But then they start adding on for the amount of drugs -- sort of like a speeding ticket, where there is a base fine, but they add on for each mph over the speed limit. Each gram is worth 6-12 years, and remember they were carrying 25 KILOgrams. Penalties are doubled if the drugs are heroin, cocaine or morphine. And the sentences are increased by 50 percent if the crime is committed by an "organization" (I guess that's the equivalent of our conspiracy laws). In all, if convicted on all counts, the minimum sentence came to 453, 657 years. No, that's not a typo -- we're talking almost half a million years.
I thought I'd do some searching on the Web to put that in perspective. Here is what was going on in the world 453,000 years ago:
It seems that a pair of former prostitutes from South Florida came up with what they thought was a great idea to make some really big money. Remember the movie Midnight Express, the story of a kid named Billy Hayes who got busted for trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey? Sure you do.
Well, these two ladies thought it might be profitable to smuggle drugs into Turkey. And they apparently wanted to make an impression, as they were busted with 25 kilograms of cocaine.
So what kind of time were they looking at? The basic penalty for importing narcotics without a license is 10-20 years in prison, plus a few more years for possession. But then they start adding on for the amount of drugs -- sort of like a speeding ticket, where there is a base fine, but they add on for each mph over the speed limit. Each gram is worth 6-12 years, and remember they were carrying 25 KILOgrams. Penalties are doubled if the drugs are heroin, cocaine or morphine. And the sentences are increased by 50 percent if the crime is committed by an "organization" (I guess that's the equivalent of our conspiracy laws). In all, if convicted on all counts, the minimum sentence came to 453, 657 years. No, that's not a typo -- we're talking almost half a million years.
I thought I'd do some searching on the Web to put that in perspective. Here is what was going on in the world 453,000 years ago:
- The first humans started moving into Britain and China.
- The River Thames began to take its current course.
- Mount Kilimanjaro stopped growing.
- Hominids first began to control and use fire
- Humans were first created by aliens using genetic engineering. (Well, at least that's what a lot of sites claim.)
If you prefer to stick to literal interpretation of the Bible and take the age of the universe as 5767, the minimum sentence is about 79 times as long as the universe has been around.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate any information on what happened to these women since their arrest. But one wonders if a sequel won't be forthcoming.
