ON SURVIVING PRISON HELL I was scared I’d be eaten alive but I became cellblock boss, raking in cash and handing out M&S knickers
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.
“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-aweek.” 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.
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.
THREAT
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.”
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.”
I take responsibility for what happened, but I made the most of my time inside MICHAELLA MCCOLLUM ON HER DRUG MULE CRIME