Instagram model avoids jail after arrest for smuggling $190k worth of drugs

An Instagram model was caught red, or rather green-handed, smuggling 88lbs of cannabis into the UK, but managed to avoid any jail time.

In October 2024, 27-year-old Olga Bednarska was stopped by customs officers at Manchester Airport after returning from an all-expenses paid trip to Thailand.

The model, who had appeared on the Netflix show ‘Too Hot to Handle,’ said she packed her own luggage and had been asked by a friend, who she referred to as ‘Tex’, to bring designer clothes and watches into the country. She claimed the same individual had paid for her flights.

Within her clothes, officials discovered multiple vacuum-sealed packages of weed, worth a whopping $189,750.

Influencer resorted to smuggling drugs after ‘living beyond her means’

According to the Manchester Evening News, prosecutor Samuel Eskdale told the court that Bednarska had told Border Force officials she packed her suitcases herself and had not been asked to carry anything for someone else.

However, when the officers asked her to unlock the suitcase, she didn’t have a code to do so. Eventually, she revealed that she had actually been given the suitcases at the airport.

Bednarska pleaded guilty, but Judge John Potter ultimately decided not to send the Instagram model, who boasts 111,000 followers on the Meta-owned platform, to jail. Instead, she was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and ordered to complete 15 days of rehabilitation activity requirements

“I am not going to send you to prison – that will mean you will be released from custody,” he ruled. “Over the course of the last few years, you have found yourself in financial difficulties. You have incurred debts to do with work, rent and other household costs. You have simply lived beyond your means.”

After speaking with someone she met through a friend, the influencer had ultimately agreed to import goods from Thailand where she traveled on another party’s dime, received a free hotel stay along with spending money, and was paid nearly $23K for her efforts.

“I am sure you can imagine the harm that wholesale value drugs have on our communities when they are sold for profit. You have directly contributed to this by agreeing to do what you did,” the judge added.

This is hardly the first time an Instagram model has found herself in trouble with the law. Earlier this year, an influencer was charged with causing a three-vehicle car crash that killed two people. She later admitted that she was on drugs and told officers she was “from the future.”