Two British Women Caught Trying To Smuggle £1.5 Million Worth Of Cocaine Out Of Peru!
Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum were sentenced in a behind-closed-doors hearing by Judge Pedro Miguel Puente Bardales. They have been jailed for six years, eight months each.
The women are expected to seek permission to serve part of their sentence in the UK but they have been warned by their lawyers the process is challenging. The women, both 20, were stopped with more than 11kg of cocaine in their suitcases as they tried to board a flight from Lima to Spain.
They protested their innocence for weeks after their arrests, before finally admitting they knew they were carrying cocaine.
They claimed they were coerced into smuggling drugs by armed criminals they say kidnapped them in Ibiza, where they were working over the summer.
The women eventually pleaded guilty in September to attempting to smuggle £1.5 million worth of cocaine out of Peru.
They were hoping their guilty pleas would see their sentence reduced from the maximum of 15 years.
But prosecutors wanted more information about the alleged drug trafficking gang.
Reid, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, and McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, eventually made amplified statements, which the prosecution accepted.
Posted By PSmooth