A former flight attendant from Malaysia who was paid just $500 to smuggle heroin into Australia has had his prison sentence increased by the Victorian Court of Appeal.
Fariq Aqbal Omar will serve a maximum eight-year jail term after the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions appealed his five-year sentence.
In May of last year, Omar was picked up at Melbourne airport after smuggling 10 packages of the drug under his clothing.
He was convicted of one charge of trafficking a commercial quantity of heroin.
Drug smuggling of a commercial amount of heroin attracts a possible life jail term.
Omar was found to have been carrying "nearly double" the commercial quantity of heroin, or almost two kilograms of the drug.
In a ruling handed down on Friday, Justices Chris Maxwell, Terence Forrest and Mark Weinberg agreed that the original sentence was "manifestly inadequate".
Omar was recruited just a few weeks before he was arrested and was paid $500 to be a drug mule, court documents showed.
"On his arrival in Melbourne 'rectangular bulges' were visible in the front pockets of his trousers and under his vest," the justices wrote in their seven-page ruling.
CCTV cameras captured Omar going into the toilets at the airport, removing the packages and putting them in his bag.
During an appeal hearing on August 13, prosecutors argued the sentencing judge had placed too much weight on his personal circumstances, in particular that he would be isolated in prison because of his poor English skills, and that he would be apart from his wife and children, who live in Malaysia.
"Nothing in [Omar's] personal circumstances could have justified a sentence which was so out of kilter with sentencing standards," the justices wrote.
The Court of Appeal changed Omar's non-parole period from three years to five years.
