To not feel any sympathy for drug-smuggling women?

[DarceyBissell]

Just that really. Two young women facing 25 years in a Peruvian jail for trying to smuggle 11kg of cocaine. Saw they described as 'vulnerable' in one paper. Hardly. Greedy and stupid though.

Havung watched the footage of them very carefully I get the impression the dark haired girl is a completely different kettle of fish to the other.

I thought this too ......

But I think that McCollum is the "ringleader".

But Maryz, either of your theories could be true but neither makes any difference does it? They knew they were carrying drugs, it seems unlikely they were coerced. The fact that there may have been an element of "set up" behind the scenes doesn't alter the facts.

cumfy I think the opposite. well actually I don't think either of them were a 'ring leader' (does two people make a ring?) I think michaella comes across as a bit giddy and the fact that they are going to be spending a long time in foreign jail doesn't seem to have hit her like it has Melissa. she seems to be quite aware of maintaining a 'pose' and a defiant stance with arms folded, whereas melissa just looks terrified, rabbit in the headlights. and I think that's because she has the wit to realise the seriousness of what they face whereas Michaela doesn't seem to have realised they're not going to get away with that story. obviously we have not footage/photos of them now they are actually in prison so that could all have changed.

also- why do they keep swapping clothes? one day Michaela is wearing white top and leather jacket, the next day Melissa is wearing it and Michaela is wearing her green top that is far too big on her.

Clothes swapping? Hadn't noticed that. I can only imagine its some sort of strange attempt to look as though they are supporting eachother, neither is going to drop the other in it or something

But I agree: they are going nowhere with the story they are recounting. They're obviously going to end up spending some time in prison. Doubt it'll be long enough to act as a deterrent though

I noticed something in their statements in the mail. when asked if they had any opportunity to inform someone that they were being forced to carry drugs, Melissa answered no, but Michaela answered yes they had and described some of the opportunities they'd had to tell someone.

I swap clothes with friends (well friend- I only go with one) whilst on holiday so that in itself is not strange I just thought it odd and was trying to imagine a conversation between them in custody where Melissa says "oh I love your top Michaela, can I borrow it for the next time we go out?" it's probably something to do with them being given each other's clothes by accident after a shower or something.

I thought I read that they swapped clothes because neither one had any clean ones. So why would you put on someone else's dirty ones?!

with regard to it acting as a deterrant, well it has actually scared the shit out of me at 27 years old of going back to Ibiza or anywhere similar. it took this story for me to realise just how lucky dfriend and I were to have got home safely last year, and there were two occasions we know of were people were in our room, once while we slept- I woke up, saw them, shouted and they fled. the other, they had tried to get into our suitcase whilst we were out, but they had actually jammed our padlock so we couldn't get the key in. I had to cut a hole in the lining of the suitcase through the front pocket and that's how we got our stuff in and out- it didn't even occur to us that someone could have planted something in our case to follow us home- we didn't even check. if we had been stopped at the airport we would have been completely oblivious to anything in there. stupid I know but we just didn't think to check, even though we knew there were drugs everywhere. I know this isn't what happened with these two but just explaining how I feel about the thing after this story.

yes that would be a bit silly wouldn't it clam. maybe they just were sick of wearing the same thing for so many days so swapped.

More likely that someone was trying to steal from your suitcase than plant something in it. I think there's a genuine debate to be had about security levels in certain holiday resorts... Some of the places you read about make you shudder (and wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to go to them!)

As for these two women: those issues don't apply anyway; if their story is to be believed then they willingly got to know these guys and invited them back to their apartments etc .... Not that their accounts stand up to scrutiny anyway so all a bit academic!

oh yes I agree and that was the only assumption we made, that someone had wanted to steal our valuables (mainly because every single person that was staying at our 'hotel' had either been mugged on the stairs/halls or had their rooms broken into and burgled. we didn't even consider the drug issue at all- I only thought that could have been a possibility a few days ago. anyway, glad it wasn't.

and yes I wont be going back to san Antonio Ibiza. it's horrible quite frankly. I've heard that the family resorts on the island are lovely but not sure if I would venture back even for those.

One thing which may have passed me by in the media, is did either woman stay in contact by text or email etc during the lengthy period of time when they allegedly were being coerced? It's hard to believe they would have done so without communicating to family back home that they were in a bad situation. Strikes me they must have had opportunities. Or are they claiming they were too scared to send any texts?

they didn't but they said in the statements their phones were taken off them. i'm not sure if you've seen it but Michaela's sister actually started a 'find michaela' campaign on facebook a few days before they were arrested as nobody had seen or heard from her in about a week and that she had been last seen in Ibiza working in a club as a dancer.

*taken off them by the drug men. the 3rd girl who fled Ibiza said she got a text from Melissa's phone saying she was ok but that she didn't think it was Melissa texting.

That's why, Carpe, I have a sneaking feeling (based on very little logic) that the explanation that another even more massive haul was going through at the same time holds water.

If you wanted to pass through a couple of deals at the same time, why not use the frightened, easily caught, gullible foreigners to distract the attention of the police.

Of course there is another theory - again, completely made up with no evidence whatsoever, that the police in Peru needed a big haul to "prove" to the international community that they were doing something. I think there has been a suspicion for some time that the authorities in some of these airports are taking backhanders to let drugs through.

Late MIL's carers were a married couple from Peru, and they used to laugh at me when I muttered darkly about corruption in here in Italy. They seemed to think that it was significantly more of an issue back home. And all that you have described was alleged to happen on a regular basis in Thailand.

Plus there's the snitching to the police by the lower down in the food chain when in a sticky situation of their own. The tit for tat informing between competitors and rivals. The rank incompetence of embryonic drug-lord wannabes. And some people blab in their guesthouse, never imagining that somebody within hearing might tell somebody else, who might take exception and tip off the police what they are intending to do.

I think the "50 ways to come a cropper at customs despite all the promises it's no problem and everything has been taken care off" is worth mulling over by anybody tempted to consider being a mule. If somebody is prepared to be a gangter, or a drug lord then it's not really all that surprising that they might tell porkies, wildly understate risk, or even drop a mule right in the shit deliberatly if it suits their business purposes.

Obviously there was a chance that they wouldn't get caught. Some parts of Europe are awash with drugs that have been brought in from somewhere. I wonder - does anyone know? - is it a bit of a numbers game? Send 20 carriers through. Expect half to be caught. That uses up all your custom officials and the other 10 get through. The mark up on drugs is so high that you can afford to lose half the product. Or some other combination of figures.

I don't think their lives will suffer so much because of this. It's not like they'd been working hard and were letting off some steam before setting off for university or career, or had dependents or whatever. They were party girls, vacuously hanging out with whoever supplied them with free drugs, over-treating their hair and aspiring to the high life. Maybe they'll learn Spanish in there and come out with a more serious attitude to life.