Cocaine Cassie's shock message to Australia

The 22-year-old was dubbed 'Cocaine Cassie' after narcotics police alleged they had found 5.9 kilograms of the drug in her luggage in April this year.

Now, the South Australian woman is getting a chance to 'tell her side of the story'.

A new preview from her upcoming tell-all interview with 60 Minutes has shown Sainsbury defending herself for the first time, five months after she was arrested in a Colombian airport.

'Until people know completely what happened they shouldn't be forming opinions,' Sainsbury said.

'People have a lot of digs at me because I can't defend myself', the 22-year-old told Liam Bartlett, the journalist with 60 Minutes.

Bartlett asks, 'Who talked you into it', where she responded that she was threatened and if she didn't do the job, she was 'going to lose [her] family'.

The preview suggested the five month saga began in Adelaide, Sainsbury's home town. 

The clips show Sainsbury sitting down with Mr Bartlett in a cell at the El Buen Pastor women's prison in Bogota.

Her story so far has only been told in media snippets, with her parents painting a picture of the kind-hearted 'girl next door', former colleagues revealing her past as a sex worker, her fiancé Scott Broadbridge sharing their relationship woes and her Uncle Neil damning her as guilty on national television.

Sainsbury was moments away from a sentence reduction to six years last month when she claimed she carried the drugs because her family had been threatened by an anonymous drug cartel, The Australian reported at the time. 

The explosive claim, previously unheard by Colombian prosecutors, saw her bargain thrown out the window as they were at odds with her initial statement. 

She now faces a maximum of 30 years behind bars, and her indictment hearing has been scheduled for September 26. 

This article originally appeared on New Idea.