Latest news with #PrisonersAbroad
Metro
3 days ago
- Metro
Relatives of Angel Delight 'drug smugglers' in 'shock' as they face firing squad
The family of three Britons jailed in Indonesia for alleged drug smuggling have said they are worried for their safety. Jon Collyer, 38, and Lisa Stocker, 39 were arrested at Bali International Airport following the discovery of £300,000 worth of cocaine. Phineas Float, 31 is said to have been due to receive the haul, which was concealed within packets of Angel Delight dessert powder. Drug smuggling in Indonesia is punishable by a maximum sentence of death, with many caught importing lesser quantities imprisoned for life. Convicted drug smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad. But the nation has not carried out an execution since 2016 and in the last few months has repatriated several foreign convicts of drug offences. Mr Collyer and his partner Ms Stocker, both from East Sussex, were stopped on arrival in Bali in February and were later allegedly found to be in possession of a total of 17 packages of cocaine, with a market value of £296,000. Jon's father Julian said he was in 'deep shock' for his son, with whom he had only been in contact once in the last three weeks. He told MailOnline: 'I'm very, very worried as any father or parent would be.' An anonymous relative of Ms Stocker said the mother had been taken advantage of and that she 'couldn't sleep at night' thinking about what might happen to her. Dean, a friend of Jon's said he was unaware the couple had travelled to Indonesia and said the situation was 'an absolute mess'. He added he was 'horrified' to learn they had both been arrested and charged with smuggling narcotics. Several high profile foreign drug smugglers have been allowed to return home from Indonesia in recent months. Serge Atlaoui, who was sentenced to death for drug offences in 2007, was repatriated to France in February. Last December Philippine drug convict Mary Jane Veloso was returned to Manila after more than a decade on death row. The trio are just three of many British nationals held abroad for drug smuggling offences. More Trending Earlier this week it was reported a 21-year-old British woman was detained in Munich in April on suspicion of carrying cannabis on a flight from Thailand – where the drug was made legal in 2022. Prisoners Abroad, a charity which represents British nationals detained overseas, said there had been a 60% increase in Britons arrested for drug offences in the last year. It said eight out of 12 people it was supporting in Indonesia were arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling. It advised those holidaymakers and overseas visitors to check the laws and customs of the country they are travelling to, especially those with particularly strict regimes. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: First picture of Bollywood film worker found dead after 'taking mystery green pill' MORE: Three Brits face firing squad for 'smuggling cocaine inside Angel Delight sachets' MORE: 'I'm a reformed drug smuggler – this is how mules will be feeling on flights'
Daily Mirror
24-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
'I was a drug mule - here's how traffickers pick and trick the vulnerable'
As rising numbers of Brits risk all to smuggle drugs on to planes, reformed trafficker Natalie Welsh reveals how they are at risk of being hoodwinked by organised criminal gangs A former drug mule - jailed for ten years on her first smuggling trip - has a stark warning for the rising numbers of young Brits going down the same path. Natalie Welsh said the traffickers who persuade youngsters to carry a suitcase of drugs onto an airplane are the 'best salespeople in the world '. But the picture they paint of a risk free trip is a tissue of lies designed simply to get them on that flight. In reality the drug mule is the most 'expendable' link in the lucrative international drugs trade who 'nobody cares about'. The number of Brits languishing in foreign jails on drugs charges has doubled in barely a year, new stats reveal. The charity Prisoners Abroad has seen 43 new cases in the first seven weeks of this year - almost one a day - and this is twice the rate in 2024. Bella Culley, from Teeside, was arrested on May 11 at Tbilisi International Airport, in Georgia, accused of transporting 14kg of cannabis, after flying from Bangkok. The 18-year-old has told a court she is pregnant. 21-year-old Charlotte Lee, from south London, jetted from the same Thai airport and was arrested in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the following day. She claims the 46kg of synthetic cannabis called kush was planted in her luggage. Both deny the offences. Thailand is one of the countries from where the National Crime Agency says it has seen an 'exponential' rise in smuggling attempts. Officers seized 27 tonnes of the drug at UK airports last year - up from just two tonnes in 2022. Natalie Welsh said of Bella and Charlotte: 'I just feel for them. I imagine at the moment they are not going to be accepting the reality of the situation. I read they are facing up to 20 and 25 years in prison. One is 21, the other is 18. It is just so sad. They have their whole lives ahead of them.' Speaking in general terms of others who have been guilty of smuggling, she added: 'Why are so many young people wanting to do this? Why are they so desperate for money? Are their wages not enough, is it the cost of living? Can't people afford to pay their way through university and training? Whatever the money is, it won't be much but they will be thinking it will go a long way in south east Asia. The mule takes the biggest risk and gets the lowest pay for it. Compared to what it's going to be sold for it's pennies. Everyone else is making the money. The mule is the expendable one. Nobody cares about them.' Cannabis has been decriminalised in Thailand and Natalie said: 'They will be told if you get caught here they will just take it off you. They are probably told that if it's going through transit there is nothing to worry about, it just gets taken off one plane and put on another and doesn't go through Xray machines. And they have probably been told that at the receiving end everybody has been paid off and they are expecting it. They would definitely have people telling them it's going to be fine. These are the best salespeople in the world, if they can convince somebody to take a suitcase load of drugs on a plane.' 45-year-old former one-time drugs mule Natalie was 21 and with her three-year-old daughter when she was caught at an airport in Venezuela with a suitcase with £300,000 worth of cocaine given to her by a man she had met just days earlier. She said: 'He told me that everybody knew what was going on. At the airport I would be taken to one side but not to worry, that was all part of it. They knew what was going on, they had been paid off and not to panic. So when they did come for me, my heart still went. But I just thought it was part of the plan. 'They had the suitcase open. I am telling my daughter all sorts of nonsense, keeping calm for her but actually sh***ing myself. They had taken all the stuff out on this steel table, with a single lightbulb in this cold room. It gives me the sweats just thinking about it. As soon as they pulled the knife out and went to the suitcase with the knife I knew that wasn't part of the plan and it was game over.' Her trip to South America was arranged by a London Yardie drugs gang and she thinks she was picked on because she was a crack addict and an 'easy target'. She explained: 'I had a raging drug addiction which is how I got involved with the people who recruited me. I was easily manipulated but I also accept responsibility for my own actions. Nobody put a gun to my head or forced me to make the decisions that I made. But I had no support. I was a bit of a loner. The drug had got a hold of me so quickly. I had isolated myself from my friends because I was so embarrassed and ashamed I didn't want to be around them.' She was hanging out with other addicts in Gloucester and involved in petty crime before meeting a London drugs gang who told her how she could make more money. 'I was not supposed to get the job,' she explained. 'I was supposed to be just getting some information and feeding it back to others. But when I went to meet the big man to talk about the job, I just thought what he was offering me was what these other guys wanted me to do back home. 'I thought it would be my escape from drug addiction. How an addict's mind works is just insane. 'I would get away and I would stop taking drugs and I would come back and I would be clean and I would never take the drugs again. To me it was a lot of money, but it was pennies really. It was £4,000 and I had never seen or heard of £4,000 in my life. It seemed like a huge amount of money. I was 21, I was on benefits. 10 years in prison didn't even cross my mind. I was told that it was a cert.' Natalie said she was taken to the home of an older successful drug mule who 'glamorised it'. 'She was in her late 20s, she had a nice house, nice clothes, nice things - she had everything that I didn't. She told me she had done the trip herself, she talked me through it. She did a good job on me. I was lonely and I thought she was my friend.' The gang moved fast, Natalie said: 'I was on the trip after a week. They don't want you to have time to tell people what's going on or think about what you are doing." Natalie doesn't know how many others they persuaded to make the same trip or where the gang are now. She said she wrote to the address where she had met the older mule from prison in Venezuela and they sent her £200 but she never heard from them again. Her child was sent back ton England and after four-and-a-half years in horrific jail conditions she escaped with the help of a prison guard she had formed a relationship with. After many years of struggles with her addictions, Natalie is clean but concerned about what she says is rising levels of drug addictions among the young. Natalie has written a book about her experience, called Escape from Venezuela's Deadliest Prison.
