Drug mule seeks to serve time in South Africa

Laura Cilliers admitted smuggling heroin into Christchurch Airport. Photo / File / Martin Hunter

The South African drug mule who smuggled $1.2 million of heroin into New Zealand wants to return home to serve her prison term.

Laura Elizabeth Cilliers, 32, was at the time reportedly on the run from South African police who wanted her on drugs charges.

She flew from Singapore to Christchurch on June 15 when she was caught with 1.2kg of heroin.

She was looking unwell and Customs officers found 99 heroin pellets concealed in her luggage, and on and inside her body.

Surgery was required to remove one pellet after fears it could kill her.

Her mother Laura Vermaak was devastated to hear of her daughter's arrest.

"I would have stopped her," she told South African newspaper, Die Burger.

"I want her so badly back in the country, but who's going to help me?"

Cilliers is in custody awaiting sentence at Christchurch District Court next month on one charge of importing the class A drug heroin.

She has been in touch with the South African Consulate, and she has also spoken to her mother.

"Laura has phoned me this week and said she wanted to come home," Ms Vermaak told Die Burger.

"She wants to come serve prison in South Africa. I wish she could come back.

"We will do everything we can to get her back."

Since the bar worker's arrest, it has also been revealed that she was arrested on March 25 this year for possession of marijuana on a farm in Middelburg - a large farming and industrial town in the South African province of Mpumalanga.

She later skipped bail and a warrant had been issued for her arrest, it was reported.