logo
'Trafficking mule' Brits stuck in hellish jails - why some do it and grim fates

'Trafficking mule' Brits stuck in hellish jails - why some do it and grim fates

Daily Mirror25-05-2025

Bella May Culley, 18, and Charlotte May Lee, 21, were arrested with a day of each other and face decades in foreign jails, but they are just two out of hundreds of British nationals languishing in foreign prisons on drugs offences
Two young British women face the terrifying prospect of decades behind bars in hellhole jails abroad after being caught smuggling drugs - but they are among hundreds of others currently locked up in prisons across the globe.
Bella May Culley, 18, from Billingham, County Durham, who was detained in Georgia on May 11 after 14kg of cannabis was found in her travel bag, faces life behind bars in the country's notorious Soviet-era women's jail.

A day later, Charlotte May Lee, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was arrested at Colombo International Airport in Sri Lanka, with 45kg of synthetic cannabis, known as "kush," concealed in her luggage. The former TUIA air hostess could spend a year in the harsh Negombo prison before she is even sentenced.

Both women, whose cases are not believed to be connected, deny the charges they face.
According to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), more than 850 British nationals are currently locked up in prisons across the globe for drug-related offences. Offences that may carry cautions in the UK are often penalised with long prison sentences when overseas, while in 33 countries or territories, some drug offences carry the death penalty.
Young Brits often find themselves detained for months without trial and facing distressing living conditions. Prisoners Abroad is currently supporting 80 Brits between the ages of 18 and 30 held in foreign countries for drug offences. Two-thirds of these are still awaiting trial, while others are serving sentences from a year to nearly 39 years.
Here are some of the other Brits locked up abroad…
Lindsay Sandiford - Bali
British drugs mule grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has been incarcerated in a cramped cell inside Bali's hellish Kerobokan prison since 2013, where she is on death row facing execution by firing squad.

The grandmother-of-two was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle £ 1.6 million worth of cocaine into Indonesia's capital by stuffing it into the lining of her suitcase.
Sandiford, from Cheltenham, claimed she was coerced by a UK-based drug syndicate threatening her children. But despite cooperating with authorities and assisting in a sting operation that led to further arrests, judges imposed the maximum penalty, citing damage to Bali's image.

Her appeals have been unsuccessful, and the UK government has declined to fund her legal representation, adhering to its policy of not providing legal aid for nationals abroad.
Now grey-haired and suffering arthritis, she spends days at a time knitting in the cramped five metres-by-five metres cell prison she shares with four other women prisoners, most of them poorly-educated local women convicted of drug offences.
Sandiford has expressed feelings of hopelessness, especially after the execution of fellow inmates, stating, 'I just want to get it over with. I feel like just giving up.' A rare family visit in April 2025, including her grandchildren, provided a brief respite from her isolation. Legal experts suggest potential changes in Indonesian law could commute her sentence to life imprisonment, offering a glimmer of hope for eventual repatriation.

Thomas Parker - Bali
Electrician Thomas Parker was arrested in January after collecting a package from a taxi driver containing over a kilogram of MDMA, the main component in the party drug ecstasy, near Bali's Kuta Beach. Accused of trying to push Class A drugs, the 32-year-old looked bewildered as he was paraded in front of the world's media while wearing an orange jumpsuit following his arrest.
He was initially charged with drug trafficking, which carries the death penalty in Indonesia. The charge was later reduced to concealing information after investigators concluded the drugs were sent by a friend, not ordered by Parker himself.

Police said Parker was noticed 'acting suspiciously' by officers while he was collecting the package. When officers approached him, he allegedly discarded the package in a panic and fled. However, he was traced back to the villa where he was staying and arrested.
During his trial, Parker, from the village of Seaton near Workington, Cumbria, maintained that he did not order the package and had initially refused to collect it, doing so only after a friend assured him it was safe and would not endanger him.
Prosecutors have sought a one-year prison sentence, but under Indonesian law, judges could still revisit the trafficking charge. A verdict is expected on May 27, 2025. Parker has expressed deep remorse, stating, "I am very sorry and apologise, I know it was a mistake. I promise not to repeat it again, because I really didn't know that [the package] was drugs."

Modou Adams - Peru
British male model Modou Adams flaunted his jet set lifestyle on TikTok, but in 2023 was jailed for nearly seven years in Peru after being caught trying to fly out of the country with £300,000 worth of cocaine.
The Londoner, 25, wowed his thousands of social media fans with his globetrotting under the self-styled moniker of 'boywholives', but was held at Lima's international airport as he tried to check in for a flight to London via Paris with almost three kilos of cocaine in his suitcase.

He was handed his sentence in a rapid trial 24 hours after his arrest by the same police force that held Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid, the so-called Peru Two, in August 2013, and is still serving his sentence in one of Lima's notorious high-security prisons.
Modou, a former marketing and public relations intern described online as an 'experienced' model, had filmed himself posing as a tourist in Cuco, a favourite cocaine pick-up for drug mules and the city McCollum and Reid visited before their arrests, and posted selfies on the road to Andes Mountains Incan citadel Machu Picchu.
The dramatic moment he was taken into custody by two anti-drugs squad officers as he checked in for his flight was also filmed on cameras at Jorge Chavez International Airport. One of the officers used a knife to cut through the false bottom of the suitcase where the cocaine was found and held it up as Adams looked on, horrified.

Anti-drugs prosecutor Lincoln Fuentes said: 'It wasn't the first time this British national had come to Peru. The first time he had also taken drugs out of the country, most probably in the same way, with a specially-prepared suitcase.
'Each drug mule is paid £5,200 to £6,000 per drug run as well as getting all their expenses paid, including the tourist trips they enjoy to camouflage their real reason for coming here. The objective this man had for coming here was solely to transport drugs back to Britain.'

John Twell - Venezuela
John Twell is serving a 15-year sentence at the Simon Bolivar prison for foreigners in Caracas after he was caught trying to smuggle cocaine worth £ 4 million out of Venezuela in 2011. The 63-year-old from Spalding, Lincs, was stopped as he tried to board a flight to Madrid, when police found 31kg of the drug in two bags.
Cut off from the outside world and forced to do disciplinary drills praising the revolution of Hugo Chavez every day, the only time he was interviewed was when a Sky News team entered the jail in 2020.
Twell insisted he wasn't a career criminal but had made one stupid decision. "I wanted to start a business in England, I wanted to buy my own truck because years ago I was a truck driver, so I wanted to buy my own truck and start working for myself, and you need capital," he said.

He added, 'We have no telephone calls, and we have no communication. Before, when we first came here, we had a telephone call every week for five minutes or two minutes… but now we have no communication with anybody. The only way we know what's going on outside is if the gentlemen here (the guards) tell us."
Despite being estranged from his family and wanting to serve the rest of his sentence in the UK, Twell said he had come to accept his situation.
"When you've been in prison for eight and a half years, there's no point crying. Why would I cry? I'm sick as it is, it's no good me getting down and depressed as I'll get more sick."

Kim Hall - USA
Beautician Kim Hall was caught carrying 43 kilograms of cocaine packed into two suitcases through Chicago's O'Hare Airport in August 2024 after getting off a flight from Cancun in August last year.
She was about to board a connecting flight home to Manchester when she was apprehended, admitting to investigators that she'd been given the bags during a trip to Mexico to take back to the UK.

The volume of drugs seized means Hall, 28, from Middlesbrough, finds herself facing one of the harshest sentences, with Class X Felonies typically carrying up to 60 years in prison.
In November, while on house arrest as she awaited trial for the drug offences, Hall appeared on ITV's This Morning and claimed that two British men, whom she met while on holiday in Portugal, offered her a free trip to Mexico.

This week, Hall was sent back to prison after supposedly trying to leave the country ahead of her trial on May 27. She is said to have presented herself to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in an attempt to trick them into deporting her.
Judge Michael McHale wrote that Hall was 'almost successful in her attempt' to flee the United States and had a flight back to the UK booked before cops realised what was happening.
Bella May Coley and Charlotte May Lee both deny committing drug trafficking offences.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Calling a colleague ‘weirdo' could be discrimination
Calling a colleague ‘weirdo' could be discrimination

Telegraph

time28 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Calling a colleague ‘weirdo' could be discrimination

Calling a colleague a 'weirdo' could be discrimination, a tribunal has ruled. Using the term, even if you are trying to put someone at ease, may 'violate their dignity' and breach equality laws, a judge has said. The ruling came in the case of Nicholas James, an autistic children's centre worker, who complained that he could not work with background music. Malcolm King, Mr James's boss, asked him: 'Why can't you be ordinary and perfect like the rest of us?' before referring to him as a 'weirdo', the tribunal heard. Mr King described Mr James's requested work adjustments as 'a pain in the arse', and likened the effect of Mr James's autism disorder on his work to having a hangover after a 'good booze-up'. The worker has now won more than £17,000 in compensation for disability discrimination and harassment. Comments 'violated his dignity' Employment Judge Stephen Jenkins said: 'We considered that the references to accommodating [Mr James's] requests as being a 'pain in the arse', to questioning why [Mr James] could not be 'ordinary like the rest of us', and to [Mr James] being a 'weirdo'...would clearly have been unwanted to [Mr James]. '[Mr James] himself clearly perceived the comments as violating his dignity, and we considered that, objectively, it was reasonable to conclude that the words had the effect of violating [Mr James]'s dignity. 'They were comments from [...] the most senior person within the executive structure of the organisation, and were comments which Mr King himself has, on reflection, agreed were inappropriate. 'In the circumstances, we were satisfied that the comments did involve unwanted conduct which had the effect of violating [Mr James's] dignity.' Requested no background music The hearing in Cardiff was told that Mr James had been working for The Venture, which provides community-based services for young people, in Wrexham since 2021. He was employed as a project worker on its inclusion project which provided play work for children with neurodevelopmental conditions, primarily autism. He later began working at events at which music was played on the radio, referred to as 'open access sessions' because they were open to the public. However, the tribunal heard he could not work with music playing in the background because this impacted his ability 'to concentrate on other matters'. It was not played while he worked at these sessions, but it continued to be played at public events that Venture held a few times a year. Mr King told him that to stop music being played at these events would be 'quite wrong' as the events needed to be 'enjoyable' for guests. Mr James reportedly felt 'continually disregarded because of his condition', 'accused of wanting to spoil children's fun' and 'not able to do his job'. Compensation for discrimination In November, another meeting took place between Mr James and several more senior employees at the company. The tribunal heard: 'After some opening comments which were complimentary about [Mr James's] qualities as a play worker, Mr King noted that for him, at the heart of it, they needed [Mr James's] gifts and they needed to find ways of making that work, 'even though it's a pain in the arse'. 'He followed that with what [Mr James] described as an ill-timed joke, saying, 'why can't you be ordinary and perfect like the rest of us? But no, jokes aside, having always been something of a weirdo myself, I have some sympathy'.' Mr James was subsequently removed from his role at the open access sessions and was later suspended from his role at the organisation because of concerns regarding his work and an alleged failure to report an incident. He then sued for discrimination. His employers have been ordered to pay him £17,154.86 in total, including £15,000 for injury to feelings. His other claims failed.

Moment armed police arrest man, 64, who made 'assassination kits' for gangsters from his back garden as he burns 'treasure trove' of evidence
Moment armed police arrest man, 64, who made 'assassination kits' for gangsters from his back garden as he burns 'treasure trove' of evidence

Daily Mail​

time28 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Moment armed police arrest man, 64, who made 'assassination kits' for gangsters from his back garden as he burns 'treasure trove' of evidence

This is the moment a 64-year-old weapons collector, who made 'assassination kits' for gangsters in his garden, began burning a 'treasure trove' of evidence as armed police descended on his property. Ronald Knowles curated 80 'assassination kits' in his home in Alfreton, Derbyshire, which included at least 33 firearms, converted from replica pistols, bullets, as well as silencers and latex gloves. He made the killing kits in a makeshift workshop, before handing them off to notorious 'drugs general' Gary Hardy, 61, who sold them from his Ravenshead home in Nottinghamshire. Now CCTV reveals the dramatic moment armed police swooped on his home as they caught him setting alight to a hoard of evidence as plumes of smoke billowed into the sky. Drone footage shows Knowles step out of the outbuilding, holding his hands into the air as armed officers made their way into his home, before they took him into custody and marched him away. The gun factory, producing the 'lethal' self loading pistols, was discovered as part of an investigation into Hardy by Nottinghamshire Police and the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU). During the raid, police found lathes and a drill used by the weapons collector to make the silencers and convert the pistols and ammunition, as well as throwing stars, machetes, crossbows and air weapons, and around 1,000 bullets. Knowles and Hardy were convicted of serious firearms offences at Nottingham Crown Court and are due to be sentenced at a later date. Police began to make arrests after stopping a van in Measham, Leicesteshire, in August 2023, where they seized a box containing four 'lethal' self-loading pistols. Each weapon had been individually packaged with a silencer, blue nitrile gloves and ten rounds of live ammunition. Detective Chief Inspector Mark Adas said: 'The bullets had been converted from blank firing to live. 'If discharged they would effectively expand on impact. These were lethal assassination kits. 'I call them that because they were individually packaged. The firearms were designed to kill. It is highly concerning. 'With the amount of ammunition that we found, that was in our belief destined for conversion, another 80 assassination kits could have been converted. 'It was a significant find for us. This is the largest firearms manufacturing operation that I have ever seen, and to my knowledge one of the biggest we've seen in the East Midlands, if not wider'. Police launched a probe into Hardy following his release from a 20-year prison sentence, which eventually unearthed that an operation he led had been supplying lethal weapons to organised crime groups in the West Midlands and Essex. Police say the assassination kits were also passed to career criminal Stephen Houston, 64, who sold them to underworld gangs. Police say one of the weapons was used by drug dealer Jason Hill, 23, to murder rival Owen Fairclough in June 2023. When police searched Hill's home they found a safe buried in the garden containing two guns with silencers and two dozen 9mm bullets. A court heard police believe Houston supplied him with the weapons which had been converted by Knowles. 'We will never know the true scale of how many lives have been saved as a result of us dismantling this operation, but it is significant'. In September 2008, Hardy gained notoriety when he was jailed for 20 years following in a major drugs trial that was guarded by armed police. That jury heard Hardy was one of three 'drugs generals' supplying heroin and amphetamines to dealers in Nottinghamshire. He had a fleet of luxury cars and owned more than 40 properties as part of a string of businesses. The court heard Hardy smuggled heroin into the UK in lorry tyres. The lucrative profits from selling the drugs were then split with John Dawes, and his brother and international drug trafficker Robert. Knowles, Hardy, Houston and Hill were convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. Knowles, Hardy and Houston will also be sentenced for conspiracy to convert a blank firing gun into a firearm, and conspiracy to sell or transfer a firearm.

Sick 'pimping websites' given four-word warning as MPs demand new laws
Sick 'pimping websites' given four-word warning as MPs demand new laws

Daily Mirror

time28 minutes ago

  • Daily Mirror

Sick 'pimping websites' given four-word warning as MPs demand new laws

Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips says tough new laws will give courts the power to suspend adult service sites behind sexual exploitation as MPs demand paying for sex is made illegal Vile "pimping websites" have been warned "we're coming for you" by a government minister. Jess Phillips said it was "sickening" that traffickers are making huge profits from selling exploited women for sex online. The Safeguarding Minister said new laws will give authorities the power to ban adult services sites that facilitate sex trafficking. ‌ But she stopped short of pledging to make it illegal to pay for sex despite growing calls from MPs. The Government is under pressure to change the law to target buyers and those who profit from exploiting others - while ripping up existing prostitution offences. ‌ Ms Phillips told MPs it is "utterly dispicable" that men post online reviews of women who are coerced into having sex. She said: "These men disgust me with their attitude towards women generally and also the suggestion that they should be able to pay for somebody's horror and then give a bad review." Brits should learn to speak Russian if defence spending isn't ramped up, NATO chief warns And Ms Phillips continued: "These sites - we know what they are - we're coming for you." She said legslation going through Parliament will allow courts to suspend websites behind sexual exploitation. And she said the Government will be publishing its strategy for tackling violence against women and girls later this year. The remarks came after Labour backbencher Tracy Gilbert read out a number of sickening reviews posted about women online. Under current law it is legal to pay for sex and adult services websites - branded " supermarkets of the vulnerable" by ctitics - are not breaking the law. Ms Gilbert told MPs that those who pay for sex must face prosecution. She said: "Sex buyers rely on being unseen while they ruin lives leaving us as a society and the individual women left to pick up the pieces of the carnage they cause. ‌ "The demand from men who pay for sex fuel a brutal prostitution and sex trafficking trade. It's funding predatory websites which make millions of pounds using women for sexual exploitation every day." And the Labour MP added: "The law must accept that prostitution is is violence against women." It comes after Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi tabled amendments to the landmark Crime and Policing Bill calling for those who pay for sex - predominently men - to face prosecution. Her proposals, backed by more than 50 MPs, would also tear up prostitution offences, which campaigners say trap exploited women from escaping their abusers.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store