VIDEO DIARY OF A DRUG MULE
EXCLUSIVE: Staring pathetically through the bars of her desolate new jail in Peru desert, cocaine smuggler Melissa Reid tells MoS: ‘A year ago I was having the time of my life... but look at me now’
BETWEEN the grey, graffiti-covered walls of her cramped and dimly lit cell, there is little to reveal the life once led by Scots drug mule Melissa Reid. A small, pink, child’s makeup mirror is attached to her bunk. A Disney princess bag full of clothes rests on top of her mattress.
But her blonde locks have been shorn back to a bob and her youthful face is marked with anguish as she battles to come to terms with the situation she is in.
Speaking for the first time from inside her Peruvian prison – nearly ten months after she and fellow mule Michaella McCollum Connolly were caught attempting to smuggle £1.5 million of cocaine out of the country – the 20-year-old delivers a desperate testimony to the camera.
In exclusive footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday, Melissa says: ‘A year ago today I was having the time of my life and look where I am now, look at what I’m having to put up with, look at what I’ve put myself through.
‘To anybody out there who… just watch yourself, just be careful, just don’t get yourself in a position like this.’
With bags under her eyes and pain written across her face, the contrast she presents with the happy blonde teenager she once was – and who made headlines around the world when she was arrested – has never been more striking.
The Peru Two, as they have become known, are serving seven- year jail terms and until recently were clinging to hopes that they would soon be transferred back to the UK to finish their sentences at home.
But their chances of that were dealt a blow last week when they were unexpectedly moved to Ancon, a prison set in a desolate desert landscape hours outside Lima. It is where Peru sends foreign prisoners to serve their time.
Standing by her bunk in a dark green hoodie, Melissa talks of her despair as she faces the sinking realisation that it may be years before she again sets foot on home soil.
‘I don’t know how long right now it’s going to take me to get home. I’m worried and I’m scared and I’m lonely and I’ve never been in this position and I don’t know what to do.
‘I don’t know how to improve how I’m feeling. I can’t improve my living conditions so I just need to live for the day and obviously hope that this is going to improve at some point.’
In other footage, pictured right, Melissa is seen staring blankly through bars as she does what her life now consists of – and waits.
The last time Melissa was filmed speaking to camera was on the day of her arrest last August, when she and Michaella were paraded by authorities in front of local media.
They were detained after security staff at Lima International Airport discovered 24lb of cocaine stuffed inside food packets in their suitcases as they tried to board a flight to Madrid.
Before that moment, they had been living a carefree existence on the sun-drenched Spanish party island of Ibiza. Though they had not known each other then, both had been spending the summer having the time of their lives, partying into the early hours and making the most of their youth.
Facebook pictures which emerged after their arrest showed them enthusiastically immersing themselves in the club scene or happily posing with friends on nights out. Then, in Peru, with the make-up still fresh on their faces, the pair were filmed for the news as Melissa protested their innocence and claimed they had been forced by a gang to carry the drugs against their will.
Later, however, they pleaded guilty to smuggling after being warned that they faced up to 15 years behind bars if tried and found guilty.
In December, they were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison. Now the women face an uncertain wait for news as their requests to be transferred back to the UK worm their way through Peru’s complicated bureaucracy.
Until ten days ago, the women were being kept at the all-female Virgen de Fatima prison in central Lima, where they had been incarcerated since last August.
After their surprise transfer, a week went by before Melissa was finally able to make a two-minute telephone call to her parents. Before that, she had only been able to send them a note, writing: ‘This is like another world in here and it’s so hard to put into words what we’ve been through in the past few days, but hopefully I will speak to you soon. I can’t wait until I’m in your arms. Love, Melissa.’
Their new home, Ancon, is a much larger, newer facility. It holds almost 3,000 prisoners, both male and female. The female wing, Ancon 2, has a special section to hold 188 foreign prisoners, the majority of whom are there for drug offences.
Last night, Melissa’s father Billy, 54, said: ‘It’s been a really worrying time. The starkness of where this prison is is very daunting.
‘Having had the experience of Virgen de Fatima, and having picked up some Spanish, I’m sure that will stand them in better stead than last August when they appeared at the gates of the prison not knowing what to expect.
‘But it is new, so they’ll just need to
get their head down and go with the flow and get used to the system and make the best of it. We’d love to be able to be with her at this difficult time and are just counting down the days until we see her again.’
Melissa, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, and Belfast-born Michaella, are currently being held in a ‘prevention’ area along with 30 other new arrivals, including women from Italy, Thailand, South Africa and Spain.
During the day they can mix with the other new prisoners, but from 6pm until 6am the following morning they are locked in their cell.
Their possessions, mostly clothes, books and letters from home, are held in plastic holdall bags scattered across the floor of the small cell that they are sharing with two other women.
The mules are sharing a bunk bed, with Melissa on top and Michaella below. The toilet in their cell
‘We’re counting the days until we see her’
amounts to little more than a hole in the ground.
Human body odour fills the air and the only natural light in the dim surroundings comes from a tiny window looking out onto a patio. The women will be held in the prevention area for up to 30 days and undergo psychological evaluation before being transferred into the main prison population. Many of the female inmates arrive at the prison with drug addictions and are put on rehabilitation programmes.
The mules will eventually be moved to Pavilion 3A, the section of Ancon 2 for foreign prisoners. The pavilion has two long corridors lined with cells each holding eight prisoners.
Other footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows the closepacked cells, the walls littered with scraps of pictures, including one bizarre image of a Union Jack overlaid with three bikini-clad women. Cells are scattered with bottles of drinking water and fruit and other personal possessions are kept on window ledges, hard against the bars.
Once transferred into 3A, the friends’ facilities will extend to two phones near a large television area, and the patio, which is bare save for a few plastic chairs.
The women will be allowed to take part in workshops, including cosmetics classes, sewing lessons and psychology talks. Eventually they will be given jobs inside the prison as part of a ‘resocialisation programme’, most likely cooking, sewing and making handicrafts.
As they become acclimatised to life inside Ancon 2, it will not be easy for their families to see them. Visitors to the prison – which is protected by 20ft walls topped with barbed wire – have to endure a lengthy wait before being admitted. There are two main security checkpoints – manned by armed guards – a pat down and two more checkpoints before visitors can finally gain access to the female wing of the jail.
On regular visiting days, it can take hours to get inside because of the numerous searches and the long distance that has to be travelled on foot.
The prison’s corridors can seem never-ending. Much like the wait the young British women now face before returning home.