Filipina asylum seeker jailed 20 years and 8 months in Hong Kong liquid cocaine case

A Hong Kong High Court judge has sentenced 56-year-old Filipina Rosita B. Palao, a former domestic helper who later filed a non-refoulement claim, to 20 years and 8 months for drug trafficking, alongside an American courier and a Nigeria and Benin national, over cocaine-soaked bed sheets brought in from Brazil in 2023.

A High Court judge in Hong Kong has sentenced Rosita B. Palao, a 56-year-old Filipina asylum seeker, to 20 years and 8 months in jail after she was found guilty after trial of drug trafficking, The SUN HK reported on 30 October 2026. Two co-defendants were also jailed.

Palao had worked as a domestic helper for 15 years before overstaying and filing for non-refoulement, the paper said. She was arrested on 15 May 2023 as she tried to pick up a consignment of liquid cocaine brought into Hong Kong by her American co-defendant.

Bed sheets soaked in cocaine

US national Stephen Dickensheets, 68, had flown in the day before from Sao Paulo, Brazil, via Paris, with a checked-in suitcase containing 17 bed sheets soaked with the liquefied drug. He was arrested during a secondary check at customs clearance.

When the pair first appeared at West Kowloon Court in November 2023, The SUN HK reported that Customs had described a 10-kilo liquid suspected to contain cocaine, estimated to be worth $8 million. The SUN HK now reports that the amount was downgraded to 1.5 kilos after extensive examination by the Government Laboratory, with a street value estimated at about HK$1.9 million.

The sentences

The court handed down these terms, according to The SUN HK:

• Rosita B. Palao: 20 years and 8 months
• Stephen Dickensheets: 19 years and 8 months, reduced for cooperating with the authorities
• Fousseni Orou Nicki, a Nigeria and Benin national and asylum seeker: 21 years and 8 months, after the court found him to be the key player

Police traced Fousseni through the telephone number used to direct Palao to collect the drugs from Dickensheets at a hotel in Tin Shui Wai. Law enforcers testified that he had been in regular contact with Palao since 2021.

All three denied knowing about the drugs. Dickensheets told the court he thought he was delivering only gifts. Palao said she had merely volunteered to pick up Mother's Day gifts on the instruction of a Chinese person she knew only as "Tear", who contacted her only by telephone. Fousseni denied being Tear.

In sentencing, Judge D'Almada Remedios told Palao and Fousseni that they had betrayed the trust placed in them by the Hong Kong authorities by committing a serious crime while on recognizance as they awaited the outcome of their non-refoulement claims. The judge said the international element of the offence also merited a more severe penalty.

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