Dawn Michelle Hunt loved sweepstakes. A 42-year-old temp worker in Chicago, she entered almost every contest she encountered. So when she got an email from someone who described himself as a British lawyer saying she had won a trip to Australia, she was elated.

“I hit it big,” she told her father after the plane ticket arrived.

The trip took her through China to pick up the prize documents, along with handbags that she was instructed to carry on to Australia. The British lawyer had promised in an email to meet her there. “My dear Dawn,” he called her.

But sewn into the lining of the bags was more than two kilos, or 4.5 pounds, of methamphetamines, Chinese authorities say. Instead of a resort in Australia, Ms. Hunt landed in a Chinese prison, sentenced to death, with a two-year reprieve. Ms. Hunt’s sentence, handed down in 2017, was later commuted to life.

Ms. Hunt and her family say that she was an unwitting victim of an elaborate drug trafficking scheme, versions of which have ensnared people around the world, including a number of older Americans.

Courts in some cases have handed down reduced sentences, recognizing that the offenders had been duped into being drug mules. China is known for its strict drug laws, and a review of several cases there with similar circumstances — in which foreign offenders may have been scammed or set up — indicates that courts are not so lenient in such cases.

In a ruling on Ms. Hunt’s case, a judge acknowledged the ruse, but concluded that she was smart enough to have realized what was really happening by the time she arrived in Asia.