Tag Archives: Peru

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Last night her Belfast-based solicitor Kevin Winters said her family were relieved to receive confirmation of the transfer. “It has been a hugely stressful time for Michaella and her family. They are anxious now to move to the next stage.”

Dungannon’s Michaella McCollum is due to be repatriated to HMP Hydebank, Belfast after a transfer request was approved by Peruvian authorities.

Peru approves Tyrone drug’s mules move to home-soil jail (Brendan Hughes, Irish News) (not currently available online)

19253And wardrobe.

Michaella McCollum Connolly (left) and Melissa Reid during their most recent court hearing in Lima, Peru.

Mr Madden said: “Their main concern at the minute is that they may be separated, sent to different prisons. “They are very concerned that might happen. They did not know each other before this started, they have now become best friends.

Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid, Peru Drug Bust Pair, Could Spend 3 Years In Prison Before Trial (Huffington Post)

Pics: AP

cuff

Michaella McCollum Connolly and Melissa Reid being led in handcuffs from the National Police anti-drug headquarters as they make their first appearance in court in Lima, Peru today.

Michaella McCollum Connolly and Melissa Reid arrive in court to find out if they will be charged over Peru drug trafficking (Heather Saul, Nick renaud-Komiya, The Independent UK)

knowles‘sup?

Michaella Connolly’s pal partied with a one-eyed convicted criminal before they were busted for cocaine smuggling. Melissa Reid, 20, was photographed smiling as she and other friends posed with hulking Shane Knowles (above) in Ibiza. The shot was taken soon before she claimed a gang on the Spanish island forced her and Michaella, 20, to become drugs mules. Tattooed Knowles, 37, lost an eye in 1999 when he was nearly beaten to death by an alleged associate of crime boss John Palmer, known as Goldfinger, in a Tenerife pub toilet.

 

Any excuse.


Peru drugs arrests: Melissa Reid and one-eyed crook pictured before she and Michaella were ‘forced to be mules’ (Irish Mirror)

collins

Philip Austin Collins, nephew of Phil.

He could be the genesis of the whole operation.

Allegedly arranged the recruitment services of Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum to smuggle drugs from Peru to Spain while in jail.

A police source told the Daily Mail:

“Officers have confirmed the link between the arrested women and the mafia allegedly led by Philip Austin Collins whose organisation tends to use drug mules from the UK.”

 

Meanwhile a spokesman for Uncle Phil Collins said:

“This has nothing to do with my client so there is no comment to be made.”

Oh.

via DailyMail

Previously: “Do It Or Die.”

Pure Mules

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Michaella Connolly and Melissa Reid claim they were threatened at gunpoint by a ruthless gangster called ‘The Cockney’ to smuggle cocaine out of Peru to Spain.

“They knew everything about us – who our parents were, what they did, their phone numbers, what friends we had. They even had photos of them and threatened to harm them if we didn’t do as they ordered.” They claimed they had loaded guns put to their heads after being handed over to a ruthless South American cartel and warned: “Do it – or die.”

 

Peru drug arrests: We were forced to smuggle cocaine with loaded guns to heads (Mirror)