| Cuthbert |
08-19-2013 05:01 PM |
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DRUGS mule Melissa Reid threw wild cocaine and ketamine parties at her Ibiza holiday apartment, we can reveal today.
The all-night partying was so out of control that one of her Scots friends who shared the flat came home early.
The girl – who we have decided not to name – said the drug parties were almost daily in the weeks leading up to Melissa’s shock arrest in Peru with £1.5million of cocaine.
She was so disgusted and worried, she boarded a flight back home to Glasgow three months earlier than planned, blaming Melissa for “falling in with the wrong crowd”.
And the girl revealed that during their last conversation, Melissa told her that she was also returning to Scotland after a flight to Barcelona “to see a man about a dog”.
Melissa, 20, of Lenzie,and alleged accomplice Michaella McCollum Connolly, also 20, have denied drug smuggling since their arrest in Lima last week.
The pair say they were forced to carry the drugs by an armed gang and feared for their lives and the safety of their families.
They claim they were kidnapped and forced to travel to Peru by a South American cartel who used a Londoner on the ground in Ibiza as a recruiter.
Yesterday, it emerged that Michaella, from Northern Ireland, had flown first class to Lima – claiming there had been no availability in economy.
Melissa’s friend – who broke down several times during our interview– told us: “Melissa put me at risk and since getting home I’ve just been waiting to hear something like this.
“I lived with her in Ibiza and I’ve been through hell. I know I did the right thing getting out of there.” The girl shared a flat with Melissa and two other girls.
But Melissa quickly befriended a new group of pals on the island who were constant visitors to their Las Piramides apartments in the party island’s San Antonio.
The friend added: “Melissa was in with the wrong crowd. When I had been working, they would come in after and just start partying.
“There was cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy at the parties. Melissa was taking the drugs.” The girl got work in a bar but said Melissa told her that she “didn’t need to work” after a few shifts at the Millennium Bar and restaurant failed to lead to a regular job.
Yesterday, the owner of the Millennium said of Melissa: “She worked here for two days but did not get the job. She did not fit in at the bar and with the people who work here.”
Melissa’s friend had flown out to the Balearic island in June with another pal for what she thought would be the working holiday of a lifetime.
Once there, they met up with Melissa and her friend and the four of them moved into an apartment together. She said: “I met Melissa once I was out there. I flew out on June 12 and the girls flew out on the 22nd and we moved in to the apartment the next day.”
The pals were soon enjoying their time in bars and clubs in San Antonio. But our source became concerned at the number of strangers coming and going from the apartment after being invited by the other girls.
She said: “People I had never seen before were walking in and out.”
Yesterday, other women who met Melissa in Ibiza also said she frequently talked about drug taking. Anita Cannon, 21, a Northumbria University student, said: “Melissa was always sitting round the pool talking about how many drugs she had taken, particularly ketamine. It’s all she talked about.”
Anita and 18-year-old pal Nicole Sangster – a former pupil at St Augustine’s High School in Edinburgh – stayed in a neighbouring apartment and were aware of one of Melissa’s flatmates leaving because of the parties.
The former flatmate added: “I told my mum everything that was going on the week before I came home and she said, ‘Get out of there. Enjoy the rest of your time there but you are doing the right thing’.”
The girl also revealed how she became suspicious when Melissa and another girl started seeing two young holidaymakers from Glasgow.
She said: “Melissa had been hanging about with these two Scottish guys. They had their own big villas and stuff. “I had met the boys and didn’t think anything at the time. But I went to the villa for one night just before work. They had a lovely big house and I wondered how two quite young boys managed to get a place like this for the week. “Melissa had been seeing one and an English friend had been seeing the other guy.”
The friend says the morning she was leaving Ibiza, Melissa said she too was going home – but instead of flying to Glasgow, she was going via the Spanish mainland.
She added: “I said to her, ‘Are you going home?’ She said, ‘Yes, but I’m not flying to Glasgow, I’m flying to Barcelona’. I said, ‘Melissa, why are you going there?’ She said, ‘I’m going to see a man about a dog’.
“I’ve never had to deal with anything so horrible. But even when I got home, I knew it wasn’t the end of it.
“The day that I left, I thought, ‘Is she really going to Barcelona?’ It just didn’t make any sense.”
Both Melissa and the flatmate were due to fly out of Ibiza on July 22. On July 30, Melissa took a flight from Madrid to Majorca and arrived in Peru shortly afterwards.
She and Michaella were arrested on August 6 at Jorge Chavez airport in Lima. Less than three weeks after the pal arrived home, she discovered that Melissa had been arrested.
She said: “The morning I found out what had happened, I woke up and found 42 texts and 10 missed calls. “I thought, ‘What the hell’s going on here’. I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’
“One of my friends phoned me and asked if I had read about it? I read the story and it was about the Michaella girl… and then I saw Melissa’s name. “My heart sank and I was shaking. I just sat staring at the wall and thought, ‘I need to phone my mum’.
“I’ve not heard anything from our other pal who shared the flat as we all had a huge argument before I left and I think they basically hate me. “I came home because I thought I was being pushed out my own apartment because of all of this. It’s been a rollercoaster for me. I just don’t know what to do any more. “But I bet Melissa is sitting there thinking that she wishes she had listened to me now. I watched the video of Melissa with Michaella after their arrest and I just thought, ‘How did she end up there?’”
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Peru drug arrests: Pal of Melissa Reid reveals the alleged drugs mule held cocaine parties in Ibiza after 'getting into wrong crowd' - Daily Record
Whoops :D
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The head of Ibiza's police investigation into drug trafficking claims against two UK women has cast doubt on claims they were coerced into trying to smuggle drugs out of Peru.
Melissa Reid, from Lenzie near Glasgow, and Michaella McCollum, from Dungannon, both 20, are accused of trying to smuggle £1.5m worth of cocaine.
The pair deny the claims, saying they were forced into it by a gang in Ibiza.
But police said they had several opportunities to alert the authorities.
First Sergeant Alberto Arean Varela, head of the anti-drug and organised crime police unit at the Guardia Civil in Ibiza, said the claims ran counter to his knowledge of trafficking cases.
"Sincerely, with my experience, I don't think these girls were forced to do this," he told the BBC.
"Because, particularly when you go to South America, you need to pass several consuls so the first thing you [would] do is go to the passport consul and say 'Listen, this is what is happening to me', and the police will react - so I don't think they were forced."
Dr Jennifer Fleetwood, criminology lecturer at the University of Leicester, who has carried out research into the involvement of women in the international drugs trade, said their experience did not appear to be typical.
"We know that most drug mules are male - women represent about 20% but that does not mean that their story is not plausible... anyone who researches this [issue] finds people who have been coerced," she told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.
The pair, who are expected to appear in court in Lima next week, could face lengthy prison sentences if found guilty of drug smuggling.
Ms Reid and Ms McCollum had been working at bars in San Antonio, the main resort for thousands of young British tourists every summer, when they said they were befriended by a man from London.
They claimed they were then forced at gunpoint to make the journey to Peru, shadowed by gang members along the way.
They were stopped on 6 August when they tried to board a flight from Lima airport to Madrid.
Police said they found more than 24lb (11kg) of cocaine in food packaging in the women's luggage.
The women have previously said they were unable to go to the authorities because the gang had threatened to kill their families if they did not co-operate.
The National Police of Peru released a video of the women being questioned just after their arrest.
In it, Ms Reid answers said: "I was forced to take these bags in my luggage".
Ms Reid's father, William, who has flown to Lima to see his daughter, has said there was no way she would have been willingly involved.
Ms McCollum's family issued a statement through their lawyer saying she denied involvement in any criminal offence.
Her lawyer left Belfast for the Peruvian capital on Friday.
"If she is charged she will be denying it," he told reporters.
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Pictures of them in Peru. They look terrified.
So basically:
- Marched through Spanish customs at gun point.
- Marched onto the plane at gun point.
- Sat next to gangster in first class for 6-8 hour flight to Peru - at gun point.
- Marched off the plane at Lima airport, (at gun point.)
- Marched through customs at gun point.
- Driven around Lima for a shopping expedition of a lifetime (presumably at gun point.)
- Bought shoes. Gunman forced them to carry their bags home.
- Back to Lima airport, still with a gun pointed at their big heads. And finally, 'hello Mr Customs inspector. This is my gangster pal, he's got a gun, you know... Oh, wait, where's he gone!'
Obviously these poor girls deserve the utmost sympathy for their terrifying plight. |
