Inside accused drug trafficker Cassie Sainsbury's "deeply depressing" time working at a Sydney brothel.

The brothel madam who employed Cassie Sainsbury has shed light on the accused drug smuggler’s experience while working at 220 Gentleman’s Club in Sydney’s west.

Pamela Feranchi told The Daily Telegraph the 22-year-old had been “depressed” while at the Kingswood club in the months before she was caught allegedly attempting to traffic 5.8kg of cocaine in Colombia.

The Adelaide woman went by the name ‘Claudia’ and advertised herself as “19 years old… classy, fun and ready to please”, but Feranchi said she was not very popular with clients.

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A post shared by Club 220 (@club220) on Jul 7, 2013 at 1:31am PDT

“Cassie was a very sweet girl who was deeply depressed and didn’t want to work as a sex worker,” Feranchi told The Daily Telegraph, adding that Cassie didn’t drink or take drugs.

“Sometimes she would cry in the corner eating pizza, chips and gravy. She wasn’t the most popular girl, God love her, she was a bit tubby, even though she was a personal trainer.”

An unnamed colleague had lifted the lid on Cassie’s time as a sex worker, telling Nine News she had lied about her mum dying of MS and profited from it.

Feranchi said Cassie had also claimed she herself had cancer and was forced to become a prostitute to pay off large debts.

“She was a complete mess, you could tell she did not want to be there but she had big money problems,” the madam told the newspaper.

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“She told some of the other girls her mother was no longer alive and me that she had been diagnosed with cancer, she broke my heart.”

Sainsbury reportedly worked at Sydney brothel from August to December on a fly-in-fly-out basis, with her partner Scott Broadbridge helping her pay for flights.

Feranchi told The Daily Telegraph Cassie had asked for work to support her partner, who she claimed was unemployed.

“She rang me crying from Adelaide asking for work saying her fiance wasn’t working, he was living off her, and she needed the money to support him.”

Listen: Because while the popularity of true crime surges, we are all armchair detectives.

According to its website, 220 Gentleman’s Club offers the “best possible adult experience” at rates of $150 per 30 minutes or $250 per hour.

It advertises “mature, talented, beautiful and friendly Sydney cougars” in it’s “seductive, classy, sexy and exotic line up” and offers “daytime specials and discount packages for two or more ladies”.