Convicted Kiwi cocaine smuggler Sharon Armstrong is back in New Zealand after spending two-and-a-half years in an Argentinian prison.
In a statement, Armstrong, 56, said she was "relieved and overjoyed" to be home and reunited with family in Taranaki after being "incarcerated in a grim prison on the outskirts of Buenos Aires".
The former deputy chief executive at the Maori Language Commission was arrested in 2011 in Buenos Aires with more than 5 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about $1.25 million contained in a false bottom in her suitcase.
Armstrong has always denied knowing the cocaine was in a secret compartment of her bag and said she was tricked into carrying it by a man she had met online.
In March last year she was sentenced to nearly five years in prison, in what was considered a lenient sentence with the judge accepting she had been tricked.
In a statement taken from an interview with magazine Woman's Day, Armstrong said she believed she was picking up documents for the London-based man and was on her way to meet him in person.
"I acknowledge my foolishness, my stupid naivety."
She said she had told her story to help prevent other women from getting into dangerous online dating situations.
Armstrong's case attracted international media attention and soon after her conviction an America-based British physics professor was arrested in Buenos Aires for cocaine smuggling, also claiming he was the victim of a "honey trap".
