Drugs mule
Michaella McCollum has spoken for the first time about her hellish years behind bars in Peru and says: “I hope it makes people think twice about doing anything as stupid.”
The 23-year-old model, jailed for trying to smuggle cocaine worth £1.5million aboard a plane at Lima Airport, tells how she lived in a mosquito-infested cell with seven other women sharing an overflowing hole in the ground for a toilet.
Her bed was a concrete shelf and the food given to her and other inmates was crawling with maggots.
McCollum, convicted with fellow “Peru Two” accomplice
Melissa Reid , found the gangster inmates so terrifying she thought she was going to be “eaten alive”.
And she feared she would be in
jail for life , claiming that her prison psychologist told her she would “never see the light of day” when she rejected his advances.
But McCollum, from Northern Ireland, claims she clawed her way up the jail pecking order by using money and M&S underwear sent by her family to fund a thriving beauty salon which she ran from her cell.
Ian McIlgorm
Michaella - now older and wiser - urges others not to repeat her mistakes
She went from “bullied white girl” to “top dog” in her prison block, and was put in charge of the phone, TV, and the budget for buying essential food and cleaning supplies.
And she claims these pictures show how she tried to brighten up the lives of her fellow inmates before she was finally freed in April.
But McCollum, now back home with her family, confesses: “What I went through was completely my fault – and I lost three years of my life. You get an adrenaline high because you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing. No one put a gun to my head.
“Now I have got to prove to the people I love that I’m responsible and that I’m sorry for what I put them through.”
She and Reid hit the headlines in August 2013 when they were caught with 24lb of cocaine at Lima’s international airport, trying to board a flight to Spain.
She had been on a four-day bender on ketamine and magic mushrooms in Ibiza when she made the decision that would destroy her life.
McCollum says: “I was a mess when this Cockney guy Jake came up to me offering to help me make good money. Foolishly, I agreed, went back to the apartment I was sharing and got my passport, some shorts and bikinis.”
Reuters
Michaella (left) with Melissa Reid were caught just before take-off
She met fellow mule Reid for the first time at Majorca airport to begin her £4,000 task. They flew to Lima posing as tourists, even visiting Inca citadel Machu Picchu as part of the charade.
Then they picked up the 32 packets of cocaine in porridge wrappers, packing them inside folded clothes.
But after passing two sniffer dogs, their bags were searched by a suspicious plain-clothes officer at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport. It was a moment that would bond the Peru Two – who lied that they had been forced to carry the drugs – for ever.
McCollum says she and 22-year-old Scot Reid, released in June, still speak daily on the phone.
After her arrest, McCollum was more scared of how her strict Catholic family would take the news than she was at the prospect of prison.
She said: “When I was allowed to look at Facebook by a police officer, I realised they thought I’d gone missing and had set up a campaign to find me.
“I managed to get some money to call my mum who was screaming with delight – until I told her what had happened. Then the line went dead as the money ran out.”
After realising her lie could land her in jail for 15 years if found guilty, McCollum saw sense and confessed, receiving six years and eight months instead – which was cut short in April.
Now back home with her mum and nine older siblings in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, she reminisces about a birthday party thrown for her by fellow inmates whose loyalty she bought with the £200 a week she made giving waxes, manicures and facials.
And she admits paying fellow inmates a pittance to clean her cell.
“I take complete responsibility for what happened but I made the most of my time inside,” she says.
“You could cry and mope or try to do something with the time and have what fun you could.” But inside her cockroach-infested first jail Virgen de Fatima, fun looked very unlikely.
“Whenever you moved, the metal bunk beds rattled and all the cockroaches crawled out from inside the tubes,” she says.
“Each block had an inmate as its general co-ordinator and ours took against me and Melissa immediately as we were the only white girls. The food was awful and you could never be sure that the rice in the paella wasn’t actually made up of maggots.”
But after 10 months, the pair were moved to Ancon 2 prison, infamous for being even tougher.
“I thought we were going to be eaten alive. They were all gangsters who smoked crack,” says McCollum.
Reuters
The nightmare of Peruvian detention begins for Michaella (left) and Melissa
“The beds were concrete shelves. And although there were no cockroaches, it was so hot and mosquitos buzzed around us all night. The food was crawling with maggots and the water was brown. The cell was crammed with eight of us. We had no toilet, just an overflowing hole in the floor. There was no toilet paper, no soap, no dignity.”
But the jail had a pecking order which she boasts she was able to break into within six months.
She says: “I became quite an entrepreneur. I used money from my family to open a business. I would buy products in and bought a massage table, hair straighteners, rollers and a hairdryer.
“I would charge 25 Peruvian Sol (about £5) for a blow dry, 120 for highlights, 15 for nails, 20 for a cut and was soon making £200-a-week."
Before too long she was employing a Spanish girl to do most of the work, while she was voted general coordinator and started running the wing.
REUTERS/Mariana Bazo
Michaella and Melissa sit nervously in court in Callao
She also won the loyalty of a Thai prisoner. After seeing her underwear was so threadbare, McCollum persuaded her mother to get her M&S knickers, which she gave her as a present.
“This poor woman was so made up,” she says. “After that she cooked Thai meals for me with the fresh vegetables we were allowed to buy with money I made from the salon.” As she gained the loyalty of fellow inmates, McCollum also attracted unwanted attention from men and women alike.
She claims she received over 500 love letters – including a marriage proposal. Another admirer sent her a present of eight kittens, all named after serial killers, which she gave back.
But she claims the most serious threat came from a married prison psychologist.
She says: “He once told me we could live happily ever after. He tried to propose. Once I rejected him he sent letters to the court saying I was the head of a drug mafia. He told me I would never see the light of day.”
Michaella McCollum Connolly
But luckily other members of staff had her back. She says: “The guards would do me favours – let me out for longer than the five minutes we had to go to the kiosks in the courtyard. And I got a mobile because I was helping.
“It was a risk as there was supposedly a 10-year sentence for having one. I had to pay a guard to turn a blind eye. I only got it for my mum’s birthday, so I could
sing to her.”
Now her souvenirs are the cell party pictures she sent back home – seen here for the first time .
She says: “It is what it is. You can sulk and cry every day, but can have some fun. That helps pass the time.
‘We would prepare ourselves for a long time to look as good as possible. Those days the pictures were taken there was always an event or something happening. I weirdly look kind of happy.”
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