CHECKING in their bags before heading off on a trip of a lifetime around Europe, Katyna Baia and her partner, Jeanne Paolini, couldn’t have been more excited.

But the last thing the couple, 40 & 44, expected was to be banged up in a cell, fighting to clear their names, when 43kg of cocaine worth £2.5million was discovered inside their suitcases.

The pair, from Brazil, had unknowingly been caught up in an elaborate criminal operation at São Paulo International Airport, led by two airport staff and two female “passengers” who dropped off bags full of drugs that weren’t checked in.

Footage showed the moment the two airport staff members removed the couple’s checked-in bags from the carousel before taking off their name labels and putting them on the suitcases filled with drugs.

With one kilogram of cocaine now believed to be worth £50,000 in Europe, the street value of the huge stash could have been as high as £2.5million.

When Katyna and Jeanne landed at Frankfurt Airport in Germany, they were arrested and wrongly jailed for 38 days on suspicion of drug trafficking.

They told The Sun how they were left “humiliated” after being strip-searched multiple times and thrown into a German jail before the drug gang’s plot was finally uncovered.

They had planned a 20-day trip to Europe in March, flying from their hometown of Goiânia in Brazil to Berlin, with connecting flights in São Paulo and Frankfurt.

But after landing in Germany, Jeanne was approached by a plain-clothed officer at baggage claim, who immediately took her in for questioning.

She recalled not thinking much of it as she thought it was a routine procedure at the airport.

But the Brazilian pair were taken into custody and interrogated by cops in Frankfurt, and later taken to prison.

Jeanne told The Sun: “This entire experience was an enormous shock for both of us and our families.

“I was taken to a windowless room, and as soon as I entered, he [officer] asked me to put my hands on the wall and handcuffed me, saying I was under arrest.

“I obviously started to ask why he was arresting me, but I could only understand the word ‘cocaine’ as he was speaking German.”

The 40-year-old vet initially thought there must have been a misunderstanding as she was carrying flu medication in her bag.

But she soon realised it wasn’t a simple miscommunication as she was handcuffed and escorted through Frankfurt Airport by police.

She was reunited with her partner, also under arrest, at a police station inside the airport.

Jeanne says: “It took us at least four hours to finally understand what happened, as they [police] had to call a translator in.

“It was at that moment that we learned about the 43kg of cocaine in the bags.

“We had our hands and feet cuffed and underwent the first of countless strip searches.

“It was one of the most humiliating experiences I’ve ever gone through.”

‘Treated like criminals’

Officers then brought the suitcases in, which the couple said were “completely different in colour, shape and size”.

Katyna told The Sun: “I immediately noticed they weren’t ours, and showed them how the labels in those bags were different from the information printed on our luggage receipt.

“I showed them our hotel reservations, round-trip tickets, even our bookings to the German Parliament, our credit card receipts, to absolutely no avail.

“We were guilty until proven innocent, and treated like convicted criminals from the start.”

The couple spent 24 hours in prison before being taken to a hearing, after which they were taken to a female prison on the outskirts of Frankfurt for 38 days.

Katyna says: “At night, I’d hear all those women crying, not knowing if Jeanne was one of them, as we were in separate cells.

“We also lost count of how many times we went through strip searches; it was extremely humiliating.

We also lost count of how many times we went through strip searches; it was extremely humiliating.

Katyna Baia

“The other day, I read a quote by Nelson Mandela that perfectly described what we went through. He said that no one knows a nation until they are behind bars.

“A nation should not be judged by how it treats its best citizens, but by how it treats its worst.”

The 44-year-old personal trainer said she was unable to properly take her medication for her chronic condition after having an operation for a brain aneurysm.

She says: “The guards dosed it whenever and however they wanted, completely ignoring medical instructions.”

On April 11, Katyna and Jeanne’s nightmare was finally over, and the couple was free from prison.

The request for release was made by the German Prosecutor’s office, and confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the couple’s defence lawyer Chayane Kuss. 

She stated at the time that the women had been reunited with Katyna’s sister, Lorena, and Jeanne’s mother, Valeria, at the Brazilian Consulate in Frankfurt.

Prison trauma

An investigation by the Brazilian Federal Police found the couple were victims of an international drug trafficking scam at São Paulo International Airport.

Security footage revealed the criminal operation conducted by two third-party airport staff and two women pretending to be passengers themselves.

CCTV showed the moment two airport staff remove the couple’s already checked-in bags from the carousel and take a picture with their mobile phone.

One of them then removes the original labels from Katyna and Jeanne’s bags and replaces them with other ones.

Meanwhile, two women arrive at the departures lounge with two suitcases filled with cocaine, and seem to be communicating with their mobile phones.

A member of staff from an unknown airline gives the two women a signal and checks their bags in without asking for any documents. The two women leave the airport shortly after.

The gang members are then seen getting the two suitcases with drugs and taking them to the same container where Katyna and Jeanne’s luggage was being held.

The Federal Police confirmed the criminals found a blind spot behind a pillar, where they swapped the labels and replaced the luggage on the carousel.

Officers found the airline staff with approximately £7,000 in cash, who then confessed to taking part in the criminal operation.

It is understood that at least 21 people have been arrested so far and the Brazilian government launched a multimillion-dollar programme to ensure more security at the country’s airports.

That includes the ban on mobile phones in staff-only areas to prevent any sort of illicit communication and scamming.

Despite being back home, the couple said they are still unable to move on and go back to a normal life as investigations in Germany are still ongoing.

Katyna says: “What we lived in prison is still very much alive in our minds.

“I still haven’t been able to completely resume my life because this emotional, psychological and spiritual wound is still very exposed.”

Jeanne added: “When we think we are freeing ourselves from the trauma, we start to rekindle some flames that take us straight to that cell.

“I never took medication to sleep or for anxiety, but I had to because it was the only way to at least return to normality.”

Last week, Jeanne and Katyna made their way to Patagonia, in their first trip abroad since they were imprisoned in Germany.

The couple said they either envelop their suitcases in plastic wrapping.

They said: “We didn’t worry much about suitcases and how to lock them before what we went through.

“But we’re sure that if our suitcase had been protected, this wouldn’t have happened to us.

“So we would tell anyone who travels to be very safe, because it’s not just a suitcase there. We are taking our lives, our right to freedom.

“It’s so much more than just a suitcase. We could have lost twenty years of our lives behind bars.”