“The Ultimate Idiocy.” Girl Caught with 12 Kilograms of Cocaine and Now Performing with Stars. How Is This Possible?

In early June, a scandal erupted in the UK. Channel 4 announcedthat in the next season of the program Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins will feature 30-year-old Michaela McCollum, a model and blogger with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. Many fans of the program were outraged by this. Usually, singers, football players and other people’s favorites take part in it. McCollum belongs to a completely different category of celebrities. In 2013, she and her friend ended up in a Peruvian prison for drug smuggling, she became famous all over the world, since then she has managed to serve time, be released, write memoirs and become famous again.

Who are called the Peruvian Two?

On June 24, the Daily Star tabloid reported that McCollum returned to her social media following a two-week break from TV filming. She posted a series of swimsuit photos of herself sailing on a yacht and “looking amazing.” Fans rushed to shower the woman with compliments.

From the outside, it looks like McCollum is a typical modern Internet celebrity who came from nowhere and gained popularity thanks to semi-erotic photo shoots or skin care tips. However, with her, everything is a little more complicated.

August 6, 2013 at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima detained Michaella McCollum, 20, from Northern Ireland, and her peer Melissa Reed from Scotland. The British women, who were trying to fly to Madrid, were subjected to a “humiliating search” right in the airport lounge, which McCollum later wrote about in her memoir You’ll Never See Daylight Again.

McCollum and Reed were found with 12 kilograms of cocaine in their luggage, worth a total of £1.5 million (today that would be £2.1 million, or almost 239 million roubles).

McCollum and Reed blame Colombian cartel for their kidnapping

Immediately after the arrest, it turned out that the girls had arrived in Peru from Ibiza a week before the arrest. There, they both worked as waitresses in nightclubs. The police were not very surprised by the arrest of the British women – foreigners often tried to earn extra money by transporting drugs to Europe. But the girls themselves, instead of repenting and asking the court for leniency, suddenly issued a story worthy of a mafia thriller.

McCollum and Reed said they were kidnapped in Ibiza by some people from a Colombian cartel. There were 14 bandits, they were armed and, the girls emphasized separately, very scary. Then they allegedly took the British women’s passports and took them on different flights to Peru, where they were forced to become couriers who carry illegal substances in their luggage, under their clothes, and sometimes inside themselves.

And indeed, the girls simply disappeared from Ibiza. McCollum even managed to put out a wanted notice in her home country. When Reed’s father flew to Peru, she threw herself on his chest at the police station and whispered: “They made me…” The British woman said that she met a fellow countryman who tricked her into meeting the Colombians. There, she was “put to a gun to her head and ordered to fly to Peru.”

McCollum told a similar story.

Police did not believe the British women’s story

However, the prosecution immediately suspectedthat something in their story didn’t add up. The Ibiza police chief, for example, immediately refused to take their words on faith.

The Peruvian police were also in no hurry to sympathize with the foreigners. They pulled the strings of contacts among drug dealers and found out nothing about the fantastic kidnapping.

However, information emerged that McCollum and Reed could have promised a decent reward for the drug trip and then turned themselves in to the police. The idea was that under the cover of the hype surrounding the two British women caught red-handed, one or more couriers with a much larger load of substances would slip onto the same flight.

Moreover, interviews with McCollum’s friends in Ibiza quickly destroyed her image of an innocent working girl who had fallen victim to terrible circumstances. It turned out that she had led an extremely unbridled life on the island, was a party girl and it was almost impossible to see her sober.

Reed later admitted that she was addicted to three types of substances at once. Moreover, she said that she did not need the money, and that she only became a drug courier “to challenge myself” and show off in front of her friends. Much later, after her release, she described this part of her life as “a downward spiral.”

McCollum and Reed were sentenced to six years in prison.

McCollum and Reed faced 15 years in prison. The British women clung to the version of the elusive kidnappers for some time, but eventually confessed that they were promised four thousand pounds sterling for the transportation, and they committed the crime knowingly. Although it is not entirely clear how appropriate this word is: McCollum later said that she thought that Lima was a city on the other side of Spain.

However, the girls’ story was partly true. They really did meet a young British man, Davey, in Spain, who introduced them to a “skinny guy from Colombia” named Mateo. He offered to earn some extra money, and both agreed. McCollum for the money, and Reed for the adventure and bravado.

In December 2013, the British women were given six years in prison. Two and a half years later, in early 2016, both were released on parole, and some time later were allowed to leave Peru.

After serving her sentence, McCollum’s career took off.

In 2020, McCollum wrote a book, You’ll Rot Here, detailing her arrest and incarceration. She claimed to have been assaulted by “rapists and murderers” behind bars, and later began cutting their hair and even founded her own prison beauty salon.

The British woman claims that earned a sum equal to about £250 a week and became a local authority. She didn’t even clean up after herself – other prisoners did that for a fee. Moreover, she bribed the jailers, who got her a mobile phone. In general, her life behind bars was quite successful. Over the years, she became quite sober about her Peruvian adventures.

After her release, McCollum began posting glamorous photos of herself on social media and found success: she has more than 100,000 followers and a best-selling autobiography. In the 2021 Netflix film, McCollum is the main narrator. In 2018, she gave birth to twins after a short-term affair and now acts as a caring model mother. Michaela does not reveal the identity of her father.

Reed chose to forget about her criminal past

Reed has it all it worked out quite differently. She did not want to use her newfound dubious fame as a stepping stone to a new life and after her release she hardly communicated with the press. While still behind bars, she had a lover – a compatriot named Gus.

After returning to Scotland, Reed and Gus moved in together and, according to neighbors, were very happy. The girl tried to forget about what happened, but reporters and fans continued to pester her. This irritated Gus. In June 2023, information appeared that they broke up.

And it’s a real surprise to anyone who knew Reed ten years ago. After all, she was the one who was constantly high on drugs and turned to crime to show off to her friends.

According to unconfirmed reports, Reed now works for a charity, lives quietly in his native Kilmarnock and recalls with horror the events of 10 years ago.

Be that as it may, one of the most high-profile international drug trafficking scandals completely changed the lives of both of its participants. And they managed to use the fruits of their “extreme idiocy” to their own advantage, one way or another.