Banged up ABROAD

With a spike in arrests of British tourists on drugs charges, we ask why anyone would risk it all

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It's that time of year when we can take a break from daily activities and jet off on a plane. And for most of us that means relaxing by a pool, or on a beach with family or friends. But for some passengers, the aim of their trip is very different. This summer has seen a rise in the numbers of Brits arrested abroad, accused of working as drug mules. The shocking trend has seen ordinary tourists, with no previous criminal history, allegedly being tangled up in international drug trafficking.

In May, former air steward Charlotte May Lee, 21, was caught in a Sri Lankan airport with 46kg of cannabis in her suitcase. Days later, Bella May Culley, 18, was arrested in Georgia and charged with importing 12kg of marijuana and 2kg of hashish.

Hundreds more Brits are currently behind bars on drugs charges, in countries including Ghana and Chile, and since April 2025, the charity Prisoners Abroad has started supporting 65 new cases.

In some countries, punishments are harsh, with British mum Lisa Ellen Stocker, 39, facing the death penalty in Indonesia, if convicted, and others condemned to life sentences in hellish prisons.

In 2013, Michaella McCollum, then 20, half of the infamous 'Peru Two', alongside Melissa Reid, also 20, was jailed for six years and eight months for smuggling £1.5 million of cocaine into Lima. Now 32, Michaella believes that recent cases are indicating that trafficking gangs are targeting vulnerable women.

'They have people that are pickers and their job merely is to pick people to become mules and they will target vulnerabilities,' she says. 'It might be their age... at 19 or 20 you're incredibly easy to manipulate.'

With the UK's National Crime Agency warning travellers not to carry bags for others and that 'ignorance is not a defence', we look at why drug mules take the risk.