Latest news with #BellaMayCullen
Daily Mirror
26-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Drug gangs 'grooming' Brits with proven tactic as they flock to 'booming' region
Organised crime expert Nathan Paul Southern says the spate of British young people getting arrested for drug smuggling is no coincidence as Southeast Asia's booming drugs production overtakes the rest of the world Criminal gangs are 'grooming' naive young British backpackers holidaying in Thailand amid a huge boom in the country's production of illegal drugs, an expert has warned. In the last two weeks, three British women have hit the headlines after they were accused of attempting to smuggle drugs. Bella May Cullen, 18, was arrested after flying into Georgia from Thailand with around 14kg of cannabis and 2kg of hashish in her luggage. A day later former TUI stewardess Charlotte May Lee was allegedly caught with 46kg of Kush – a high-grade strain of cannabis – in her luggage valued at £1.2million after arriving in Sri Lanka, again from Thailand. And at the weekend, it emerged another Brit, Isabella Daggett, 21, from Leeds, has been held in a hellhole Dubai prison since March, when she was arrested on suspected drugs offences. Nathan Paul Southern, the Operations Director at The EyeWitness Project, which specialises in the investigation of organised crime, conflict and corruption, says southeast Asia has now become the world 's leading supplier of both narcotics like heroin and synthetic drugs like ecstasy and crystal meth. The 'Golden Triangle' - a large mountainous region on the borders with Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, recently overtook Afghanistan as the world's largest producer of opium, used to make heroin. And he says gangs are 'flocking' to the region from around the world, where they appear to be using grooming techniques used in other types of crimes to ensnare impressionable young Westerners. Mr Southern told the Mirror: 'The idea of charming strangers, grooming backpackers isn't new, it's just the same old tactics in a region with a booming drug trade. The same grooming techniques we've seen in romance scams and human trafficking could be getting adapted for drug smuggling. "The Golden Triangle is the world's most prolific drug-producing region and Asian drug syndicates are outpacing even the Latin American cartels - not just with heroin, but now increasingly synthetic drugs and has become the world's producer of meth.' But Nathan believes it's not the Golden Triangle's powerful drug kingpins who are recruiting young Brits, but smaller criminal outfits which have set up in the country to smuggle drugs into Europe, particularly cannabis, which Thailand decriminalised in 2022 and can be bought legally in the country. He continued, "Those massive syndicates don't need to recruit British backpackers. Their supply chains are global, efficient, and far beyond the reach of one-off couriers. What we could be seeing is opportunistic crime—newer, smaller players taking advantage of Thailand's legal cannabis market to groom travellers into smuggling it out, where it remains illegal." He added: "These crime types are becoming incredibly prolific in the region and has led to criminal gangs from around the world flocking to Southeast Asia. Many of these criminal groups actually have connections to Georgia [where Bella May Cullen was arrested]. The organised crime trade, from scams to drugs, is absolutely booming in Southeast Asia right now and nobody is coming to stop it.' According to reports, criminals based in Thailand have been offering potential mules free paradise holidays, unlimited booze, drugs and a £2,000 payout if they agree to carry their illicit wares back home, or to a third country. Since cannabis was legalised, it has become so cheap to buy that smuggling gangs can make an astonishing 3,000% mark-up in the UK. Gangs used to send cannabis by post, but since an agreement between UK Border Force and Thai customs requiring parcels to be checked before they are shipped, smugglers have turned to recruiting Brits flying home. Last July, British and Thai authorities launched Operation Chaophraya, an operation at Bangkok Airport, to target potential smugglers before they get on the plane. By April this year, 50 British nationals had been arrested for attempted cannabis smuggling, and over 2 tonnes of cannabis seized, with an estimated value of £6million, according to reports. Nathan believes many end up transporting drugs both because they have been 'groomed' by smugglers, and because young people don't regard cannabis as a dangerous drug. Bella May Culley, from Billingham, County Durham, had travelled to Thailand, but after her family reported her missing, was caught at Tbilisi Airport in Georgia, where she faces a long prison sentence. Her grandad William Culley, 80, revealed that she went to Southeast Asia on her own but said she was meeting a man named "Ross or Russ", adding: "She's got sucked into something, somehow." Charlotte May Lee, from south London, who left Bangkok airport at almost the same time as Ms Culley, denies knowledge there were drugs in her luggage, telling MailOnline: "I had never seen them [the drugs] before. I didn't expect it all when they pulled me over at the airport. I thought it was going to be filled with all my stuff." Ms Lee, who is being held in a prison north of the south Asian country's capital, Colombo, where she is sleeping on a concrete floor, claimed she had packed her bags in her hotel room the night before heading out for the night. "They must have planted it then," she claimed. "I know who did it." Isabella Daggett, 21, from Leeds, is understood have been arrested just five weeks after moving from Yorkshire to start a new job in the United Arab Emirates. But her family insist she was taken by police simply for being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time' and has never used drugs. She was working for a businessman doing internet recruiting for construction sites in the UK and he offered to send her to the Middle East for a similar role. But police in Dubai allegedly arrested her along with another man not long after she arrived in Dubai. Nathan warns other young travellers to be 'cautious'. He warned: 'This is a consistent threat... don't trust anyone you've just met who tries to pull you into anything illegal. "The trick is often emotional manipulation. They don't ask outright. They build the bond, earn trust, and then make the crime feel like your idea. You might believe cannabis should be legal… but that won't help you when you're caught smuggling it out of a country where it's still very much illegal. "Bottom line: if you're committing a crime for someone you barely know, chances are you're being played."
Daily Mirror
15-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Bella May Culley faces life in sewage-filled cell where 3 inmates share 1 bed
Reports into Georgia's hellhole jails make for terrifying reading for the British 18-year-old, who has been told she can expect life or 20 years in prison after being accused of attempting to smuggle 30lbs of cannabis into the country A chilling report into Georgian prisons were Bella May Cullen is expected to serve her sentence if found guilty describes hellhole jails with filthy, sewage-filled cells, 75 people sharing 25 beds and brutal punishment for anyone who steps out of line. The British teenager, accused of attempting to smuggle 30lbs of cannabis through an airport, could face a lifetime behind bars. The 18-year-old nursing student from Billingham, County Durham, was the subject of an international search, with her parents having reported her missing, when she was arrested at Tbilisi Airport. She faces drug smuggling charges which could mean life sentence or 20 years in jail. The Tbilisi Prison No 5 is Georgia's only women's correctional facility, where female prisoners are sent from all over the country, and where Bella could spend the next nine months before her trial. But a report by Human Rights Watch revealed the 'inhuman and degrading' conditions inside the country's grim Soviet-era prisons, where Bella May may end up being locked up for the rest of her life. The human rights group, which visited Tbilisi remand Prison No 5 in May 2006, described chronic overcrowding, with 3,559 prisoners crammed into a facility designed to hold 1,800 - and growing by 18 new detainees every day. Overcrowded cells allowed just one square metre or less per prisoner, their report found, with some cells having one bed for every three inmates. One cell with just 25 beds held 75 people. One prisoner who was detained at the jail for several weeks described his cell as 'a wild place' where they took turns to sleep and where sometimes three people slept together in a bed. Another said: 'It is so crowded here, I could go crazy.' The report described how 'the walls and floors are crumbling and in a state of disrepair. Electrical wires are exposed in the cells and corridors. The toilets are partitioned from the rest of the cell by only a short wall or sometimes with a piece of fabric or shower curtain that the inmates have put up themselves. This design allows for very little privacy for those using the sanitary facilities. Because of the overcrowding, beds are often placed very close to the toilets. The toilets are decaying and filthy. 'All of the cells in Tbilisi Prison No. 5 visited by Human Rights Watch smelled strongly of human sweat, human excrement, and cigarette smoke. Detainees spend consecutive days and weeks in these cells without being allowed outside. 'The cells were also unreasonably hot, due to the overcrowding and lack of ventilation. Many prisoners were reduced to wearing very little clothing in an effort to stay cool.' Human Rights Watch described how one inmate at Tbilisi Prison No. 5 had been held in solitary confinement in a basement quarantine cell for eight months. One former detainee who was held in the quarantine cell for 24 hours, struggled to describe his experience. 'No, I can't talk about it, really,' he said. 'The conditions in this cell were indescribable. This is a very old room. The sewage from the second floor runs down into this room. There is a swamp of this stuff on the floor of this cell.' Detainees in nearby Prison No 7 claimed they only showered once every three weeks. One lawyer representing inmates said: 'When people were first brought to Tbilisi Prison No. 7, they weren't allowed to wash for two months. People must share one bar of soap in the shower and razors are used by many people.' The report also described how 'many prisoners have been subjected to beatings and other ill-treatment, sometimes rising to the level of torture. What is more, the government's latest anti-crime efforts have led to an increase in the prison population and have apparently led to government approval of a policy of quick resort to severe physical force, including lethal force, to maintain control over the prisons. During one disturbance at Tbilisi Prison No 5 government troops, including special forces, stormed the facility, shooting detainees with live ammunition and rubber bullets, killing seven inmates and injuring 17. One detainee remembered: 'There was shooting from the outside. There was shooting from the roofs at our building. We then went into our room and waited. In the cell next to us we heard shooting. There were people shot. There was one person injured and another one killed." A separate report into the prison where Bella May would likely serve her sentence revealed the 'humiliating' way female inmates are treated. The 2015 report from a monitoring group with the Georgian Public Ombudsman described how intake prisoners are "inspected naked and are requested to squat", something inmates "consider degrading treatment". The report adds: "It should be mentioned that such inspections take place every time an accused/convicted person enters or leaves the penitentiary facility." "According to inmates, this procedure is especially humiliating and intensive during an inmate's menstrual cycle. In some cases, because of the nature of such procedures, inmates refuse services offered outside of the facility or choose to miss court hearings." At the time of the report, the prison was home to just under 300 female inmates "of legal age", 52 of whom were accused and around 220 convicted. Three of them were sentenced to life imprisonment. Prisoners complained of "hygiene and sanitation problems", with members of the monitoring group finding standards were "violated significantly". The group also found that showers at the facility were "separated by rusting metal walls and without ventilation" and that some had windows without any glass panes.
