Donna Nelson: Perth woman on meth smuggling charges claims she was tricked by man while seeking love

A Perth woman accused of smuggling methamphetamine into Japan has broken her silence for the first time since she was charged, telling her trial how she was tricked by a man she met while looking for love. Donna Nelson, 58, is on trial in Chiba, near Tokyo, after allegedly landing at Narita International Airport with ice in her luggage last year. Ms Nelson claims she had no idea about the drugs and was, in fact, the victim of a criminal gang after being groomed in an online romance scam by a man named Kelly. After being behind bars for almost two years, Ms Nelson told her side of the story for the first time on Thursday, explaining how she believed she had found love. Her feelings of loneliness following a divorce left her looking for a companion online. She claims the man she had fallen for then used her to unknowingly transport kilos of meth. The grandmother said she struck up a long-distance relationship with a man she believed was a high-end fashion designer with boutique stores worldwide. But in reality, Kelly was a fraudster who hid meth in her suitcase without her knowing, Ms Nelson says. Joining the site AfroIntroductions in 2015, Ms Nelson was hoping to meet a man of colour who might understand what she’s been through as an Indigenous Australian. The court was told that Ms Nelson was confident that when she landed in Japan, she would meet Kelly, a romantic and successful businessman. While in Japan, the pair planned to see snow for the first time, visit temples, and go to Hiroshima because Ms Nelson was interested in history and culture; she believed she would then have dinner with Kelly and his three sons. Before travelling to Japan to meet Kelly, she had previously gone to the US twice to meet men she had found on the site. While those relationships didn’t last, the men were genuine and not romance scammers. Hiroki Ogata, a Chiba prosecutor, will continue cross-examining Ms Nelson tomorrow, hoping to convince the judges that Ms Nelson’s plans were actually to make a stack of money smuggling drugs. It is an allegation Ms Nelson emphatically denies. Late on Thursday Mr Ogata chuckled as he asked Ms Nelson whether she realised a fake Japanese ID card Kelly had sent her listed his address as the same address as Tokyo’s chief prosecutor. Ms Nelson answered by questioning the relevance given she cannot read Japanese and had never visited Tokyo. “That would be like me asking the prosecutor why he doesn’t know my home address in Perth if it was written in English?,” Ms Nelson said via a translator. Outside court on Thursday, her daughter Janelle Morgan, said she thought her mother was “doing well” and “clearing up a lot of questions that people might be asking at home”. “I think she went pretty well, held her strength, and had good answers,” she said. “Obviously the prosecutor was repeating questions a lot. “But I thought, she was letting out the real Donna.”