Two terrified British girls locked up
in a Peruvian jail which they have described as hell are said to be
'hysterical' and have not eaten for seven days after they were arrested
on suspicion of trying to smuggle £1.5million of cocaine out of Peru.
Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, and Melissa
Reid,
19, are being held in a maximum security prison following claims the
pair may have been working for a South American cartel.
Twelve guards armed with automatic assault rifles and handguns patrol the perimeter of the building.
One guard told The Daily Mirror:
'Ever since they arrived both have refused to eat or drink. They have
starved themselves while saying they are innocent. If they are found
guilty they will see what hell is really like.
Held: British girls Melissa Reid, left, and
Michaella McCollum Connolly, right, have been arrested in Peru on
suspicion of trying to smuggle £1 million worth of cocaine out of the
country
Hell: The notorious Santa Monica women's prison in Lima where the girls could end up if convicted
'One has gone to pieces. She is
hysterical. She keeps crying saying there has been a huge mistake. They
are both starting to realise just how serious this is.'
As far as their parents knew, Miss
Reid and Miss McCollum Connolly were spending the summer working
in bars and clubs around the Mediterranean.
But now they are facing up to 25 years in jail if convicted.
Former counsel general in Lima, Michael Russell, said Peruvian jails are 'pretty dour and horrible'.
Shock: The parents of Melissa Reid have yet to
come to term's with their daughter's arrest saying they had no idea she
had even left the island of Ibiza
Unsure future: Melissa and Michaella are currently held in prison in Lima, Peru
The family of Miss McCollum Connolly launched a
missing person appeal after she failed to answer her phone or update her
Facebook page for almost two weeks. It was later revealed she had been
arrested in Peru
'It's all a matter of money, quite
frankly. You have to buy your space, you have to buy your food. If you
don't have money you suffer quite a lot.'
Miss
Reid and Miss McCollum Connolly were arrested last Tuesday after
officers say they found more than 11kg of the Class A drug in their suitcases as
they checked in for a 6,000-mile flight back to Spain.
The Foreign Office is said to be providing assistance to the girls but according to the guard they have had no visitors.
Miss Reid left her job as a sales assistant at Next and travelled to Ibiza in June.
Her mother Debra, 53, said she had been stunned to discover her daughter was no longer there.
Shocked: Melissa Reid's parents William and
Debra said they are struggling to come to terms with the news. They
thought their daughter was still in Ibiza
She
said: ‘As far as we knew, Melissa was in Ibiza. That is where she has
been. She met the other girl out in Ibiza. I don’t know anything else
about her.’
Speaking
from the family’s £400,000 detached home in Lenzie, near Glasgow, her
53-year-old father William added: ‘We are just trying to come to terms
with it and we don’t really know anything.’
The family were unsure what to do.
‘If it was in Spain, it would be easier to jump on a plane out there to
be close to her, but Peru is a lot further away,’ he said.
The
family of photography student Miss McCollum Connolly, who was studying at Belfast Metropolitan College, launched a
missing-person appeal after she failed to answer her phone or update her
Facebook page for almost a fortnight.
They
say they did not know the aspiring model from Belfast had left the
popular Ibizan party town of San Antonio, where she had been working
occasionally as a nightclub hostess since June.
But Spanish police say Miss McCollum Connolly had not been formally reported missing.
Her mother Nora said: ‘We have been
speaking to Michaella. It’s a very difficult time. We hadn’t heard from
her in 12 days, and now this.’
While
her sister Samantha told the Irish Independent: 'We're trying not to
think of the media right now because some stuff is quite upsetting and
there's been some pictures in the paper which are very distressing.'
Michaella McCollum Connolly (pictured), 20, has
been arrested in Peru on suspicion of drug trafficking along with Briton
Melissa Reid, 19
The pair had posted dozens of photographs on their Facebook pages showing them enjoying the nightlife in Ibiza.
It is feared they may have been
targeted by one of the drug gangs operating in Ibiza that offer thousands
of pounds to ‘mules’ who carry cocaine from South America to Europe in
their suitcases.
Serious: If the girls are convicted, they could
be moved to Santa Monica jail- a prison with filthy conditions where HIV
and tuberculosis are rife
A total of 248 suspected mules were
arrested at Lima’s airport last year and nearly 1,600kg of drugs, mainly
cocaine, confiscated.
The majority of those arrested are
Spanish, with most mules heading for Spain, but there is a growing trend
for vulnerable Britons to be targeted as mules.
It is understood the British women
took an internal flight in Peru to Cuzco, where they were allegedly
given the cocaine before flying back to Lima.
Police said the pair, who flew to the
country on August 1, were found with 11kg of cocaine hidden in food
packets in their luggage at Jorge Chávez International Airport.
They had been trying to check in for an Air Europa flight to Madrid on Tuesday, with Palma, Majorca, as their final destination.
A spokesman said: ‘Police searched
the women’s luggage. They found 18 packets of food products with
cocaine, which weighed 5.78 kilos, in Melissa Reid’s suitcase.
‘Sixteen packets with cocaine weighing 5.810 kilos were found in Michaella McCollum’s suitcases.’
The pair are being held in a local
women’s prison, but if convicted they are likely to be sent to a
notorious women’s jail called Santa Monica in Chorrillos.
The prison was built for just 250
women but now houses more than 1,000 in filthy conditions in which HIV
and tuberculosis are rife.
Cuzco, a World Heritage Site where
tourists can begin visits to Machu Picchu, is a favourite cocaine
pick-up point for drug mules, known locally as burriers.
Anti-drugs police chief Anderson
Reyes Ugarte said: ‘Before, gangs would target poor people, but recently
the burriers we’re arresting come from Europe, mainly from Spain.
‘I suppose this situation is the result of the economic crisis and unemployment.’
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