Peru Melissa: I did it so that I could show off to my pals
FREED Peru Two drugs mule Melissa Reid yesterday admitted that she agreed to smuggle cocaine worth €1.85million for the thrill of it.
The Scottish native received €5,000 to try to sneak the stash out of South America, but said she didn’t need the cash and mainly agreed because she wanted to show off to friends.
After her arrest, she repeatedly lied to police and her family by claiming gangsters had forced her to carry the 11kg of drugs at gunpoint. But yesterday – following her release from prison in Peru last week, having served half of her six year, eight-month sentence – she at last told the truth.
Reid, 22, from Lenzie, Dunbartonshire – who flew back to Scotland last week – said: ‘I knew what I was doing. I made a conscious decision to do it and no-one forced me. I never worried about being caught. I never really thought about what I was doing.
‘I think I wanted to be this big person that I’m not.
‘I’m a daddy’s girl and have been lucky to have had an easy, sheltered life thanks to the hard work of my parents.
‘I took all that for granted and thought that nothing bad would ever happen to me.’
Her transformation from middleclass teenager to would-be international drugs smuggler began when she travelled to Ibiza for a working holiday in the summer of 2013.
She soon began taking drugs, including ecstasy, ketamine and cocaine, which she says sent her on a ‘downward spiral’. In her apartment block she met the girlfriend of an Ibiza mafia member who was involved in drugs, and she asked Reid if she wanted to go to South America to pick up a package.
‘She didn’t say what drugs or how much, but said it would only be for a day,’ Reid told our sister paper, the Irish Mail on Sunday. ‘I thought it sounded like a challenge and was blasé about it. I was offered €5,000 but it wasn’t just about the money…
‘I had lied so much it felt like the truth’
‘I just wanted to be able to boast about it. I now realise that I put myself at risk and no-one would have known where I was if anything had happened to me, but I didn’t care at the time.’
She travelled via Madrid to Peru where she met her accomplice, Tyrone native Michaella McCollum. The pair – who were later to be dubbed the ‘Peru Two’ – first took a four-day sightseeing trip around famous tourist spots where they took photographs to make it seem a legitimate holiday. They returned to the capital Lima on August 5, 2013, and picked up the drugs.
After being stopped by airport security staff with sniffer dogs, their luggage was searched and they were handcuffed and led away for questioning. ‘I was scared and made up a story thinking I would be believed,’ Reid said. ‘I now feel ashamed about lying – lying to my dad when he first came to see me in the holding cell in the police station. But I had lied so much by then it almost felt like the truth.
‘I have learned the hard way and I have to deal with the guilt and the consequences.’
Reid’s co-conspirator, McCollum, 23, from Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, was released from prison at the end of March after agreeing to serve a period of parole in Peru.