I spent three years in a Lima prison for smuggling £1.5million of cocaine - it's alarming young female solo travellers are still being targeted by drugs gangs

Daily Mail​

a day ago

One of the Peru Two who spent three years inside a Lima prison after being caught smuggling drugs from Ibiza at the orders of an armed gang has said she is alarmed young girls are still being targeted.
Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid were 20 when they became friends holidaying on the party island in August 2013 and were soon coerced into sneaking £1.5million worth of cocaine into Peru.
They were arrested when they got off the plane in Lima, convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to six years and eight months in the hardcore Ancon 2 prison - though they were released in 2016.
Michaella, now 31, appeared on Good Morning Britain today in the wake of the arrests of Bella May Culley, 18, and Charlotte May Lee, 21, who have made global headlines in recent weeks as they face drug smuggling charges and up to 20 years in jail.
She said she feels it's 'something that's always been happening' but now the public are being made aware of a small minority of cases, adding: 'I think it's alarming that its all young girls and its all similar stories.
'They've all travelled to a country alone, that they haven't been to before and their families are filing missing persons reports and they wind up in prison. I mean, it's a similar story to my situation.'
The former drug mule turned author and public speaker explained how when she arrived in Ibiza at 19 it was the first time she had ever left the UK and she was 'completely alone'.
'Within two weeks I started making friends and relationships and I made a friendship with this group of people that ended up luring me into trafficking drugs,' she said.
Michaella, who admits to consuming 'a lot' of drugs and alcohol at the time, felt 'inclined to spend more time with them' because she thought they were 'good people' who didn't party.
But it wasn't until she was caught red handed by Peruvian police that she would realise she had been targeted and manipulated.
She told hosts Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid: 'That's what they do, these organisations. They have people that are pickers and their job meerly is to pick people to become mules and they will target their vulnerabilities.
'It might be their age because at 19 or 20 you're incredibly naive, you're easy to manipulate.
'Women as well tend to be groomed and coerced in situations a lot more. If you have a drug addiction, that can be a vulnerability. There's so many different vulnerabilities.'
Bella May Culley and Charlotte May Lee have faced much public scrutiny for allegedly attempting to smuggling drugs from Thailand to Georgia and Sri Lanka with the public questioning why they would risk it all.
Michaella offered some explanation for why young girls might decide to agree to be used as a drug mule for gangs.
'You have to understand the level of manipulation behind it, its not just overnight, its probably weeks of manipulation.
'They ended up making me believe that this was totally fine, I was being dramatic, I was being naive to question it.
Bella May Culley, 18, from Billingham, County Durham, seen in court in Tbilisi after she was detained at at the city's airport ion suspicion of carrying 14kg of cannabis
'They were like "everybody does this, this is fine, we work with police, we work with everybody in the airport, you're being dramatic, you've never done this, you've never left the country" making me feel like a little girl who doesn't know anything and I was so scared to say no.
The mother-of-two believes girls are targeted because men 'know they can manipulate women to do things', adding she herself was 'so scared' to say no.
'You're so far away from your family and this is another vulnerability. These women are in Thailand, they're so far away from family.
'When you don't have contact with your family and your friends, you're even more vulnerable.'