By Rachel Tiffen
Wellington woman Sharon Armstrong says she can easily explain how she had multiple driver's licences and different types of cash when she was arrested for cocaine smuggling in Argentina.
She says each day she waits by the telephone in her Buenos Aires jail, her only link to the outside world.
When Argentinean airport police opened her suitcase, Armstrong says she'd never seen anything like it – but that doesn't answer how the cocaine got there.
Armstrong says she was duped by "online fraudsters". But how could she not know it was inside?
"I can't talk about that," says Armstrong. "Not at this stage."
Argentinean officials said they also seized four driver's licences and several types of currency, but Armstrong says that was three licences that she can explain.
"I have a New Zealand driver's license, I have an Australian driver's license and I've been to the Cook Islands for a holiday and I have an expired Cook Islands driver's license," says Armstrong.
She says the amount and type of cash was completely normal for a traveller - about US$160 (that's about NZ$200), 700 Argentinean pesos (about NZ$214) and a bit of New Zealand and Australian coin change.
But for the moment Armstrong's focusing on the legal fight ahead. Friends and whanau back home have set up a defence appeal to help fund it.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it can help get that money to Argentina if required.
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