to think you don't bring 290 tramadol tablets to a foreign country if they aren't even yours

[pisacake]

www.thesun.co.uk/news/4838770/holiday-brit-arrest-jail-tramadol-prescription-pill/

"Laura flew to Hurghada airport on October 9 for a fortnight stay with hubby Omar, 33. They met four years ago and she jets out to see him four times a year.

He suffers back pain after an accident, so she took 29 strips of tramadol, each containing ten tablets, plus some Naproxen given to her by a pal.

In Britain tramadol is prescription only, but it is banned in Turkey where addicts use it as a heroin substitute.

A pill sells for 8p — meaning Laura could have made just £23.20 even if she wanted to."

It's an opiate so obviously a controlled drug with a very high abuse potential. Some countries you'd get arrested even if you had a prescription.

[KimmySchmidt1]

Bloody suspicious that she married him 5 years ago and has only seen him 4 times a year since. Why doesn't he live here??? Come off it.p

[PurpleCrowbar]

I live in Egypt.

Tramadol abuse is taken VERY seriously here! You can buy all sorts of things OTC that would be prescription in the UK (e.g. asthma inhalers) but you absolutely can't access tramadol except via dodgy street dealers.

I accidentally 'smuggled' 6 a year ago - I'd picked up an old handbag that I'd previously had in UK storage, & didn't realise there was an ancient half used strip I'd had prescribed in the UK years before knocking about in an inner pocket.

Told an Egyptian friend about this, in a 'So hypothetically if I'd been stopped & bag searched at the airport, how much shit would I have been in?'

He went slightly grey & said 'You don't want to know. You fuckwit.'

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Presumably he couldn't get a spousal visa.

He's even less likely to get one now I'd imagine.

[bananafish81]

300 pills isn't an obscene amount to have in your possession if it's legitimately prescribed for you - completely excessive for 2 weeks though

I'm prescribed 8 pills a day and get 4 weeks issued at a time (which is 224 tablets).

She is clearly an idiot and this is clearly bollocks - I don't believe the tablets were legitimately obtained, nor that they were intended for genuine pain relief

I am always very very careful when I travel abroad with my medications, as my tramadol and oxycodone are both controlled drugs, and class A substances if not prescribed for you

I travel with my meds in their original packaging, which shows they're clearly prescribed for me in my name

I will never go to dubai primarily because it's a gaudy hellhole built on slave labour because even with a legitimate prescription, possession of opioids could get me banged up in jail.

[Hissy]

We’re talking about a country that is utterly morally bankrupt, with decades of military rule resulting in unprecedented illiteracy.

Going through Cairo airport you have half a chance of getting through without too much trouble, or certainly before the fall of Mubarak. I heard post Mubarak the customs “officials” were stopping every foreigner to confiscate and ‘fine’ them (note fines go into very deep back pockets..)

Alex airport was always difficult to go through, it’s not as busy so they have the time to search.

One of the things they would have on the banned list at one time was - I kid you not - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

The woman is a fool, they’ll take her for as much money as they can get... just like her “husband” is doing.

He’ll have more than one of her most likely.

I know this happened in places like Luxor. I’ve heard how the ‘husbands’ talk about their brides. Contempt doesn’t cover it.

But it’s ok... because these deluded souls aren’t Muslims...

[SurfaceThroughTheWaves]

In our local paper her sister is quoted as saying they’re not married, he is married to an Egyptian woman who he has children with. So very easy for him to wash his hands of her.

[Theimpossiblegirl]

Drugs aside, I know someone who only sees her husband 6 times a year. She's British but doesn't earn enough for her husband to be granted a visa. They have kids so she lives in the UK and they visit him when they can. It's a sad situation but it does happen.

[SurfaceThroughTheWaves]

www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/terrified-sister-hull-woman-jailed-729301

[cathyclown]

Another love rat from a Muslim country.

There is more to this story.

[Ktown]

You couldn’t make this up. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
She is a clueless idiot. Omar has a bloody wife and 4 kids. What was she thinking taking tramadol over to him?!?

[hmmwhatatodo]

If she was really as simple as a child, what on earth werevher glamorous family doing letting her go off to Egypt to mess around with a man who has a wife and 4 children?? Now I have no sympathy and I hope mr Omar gets his backside kicked over there. Idiot.

[Funnyonion17]

I know her family, as far as I'm aware this is a true story. But then I can see how this looks tbh, who travels with all that tramadol.

[pisacake]

I don't think anyone's saying it's not true.

Her scumbag boyfriend asked her to bring opiates, she did (where did she get them from?), now she is facing the music.

What part is in doubt?

[EachandEveryone]

Tramadol hardly even touches me. I have been known to take one when my shifts are changing over to help me sleep but they aren’t exciting. However my father was dying and one knocked him out for 12 hours.

[mrsharrison]

I've no doubt this poor woman has been unknowingly subsidising this hustler and his family. Certain Egyptian men see it as a business.

[Givemeallthechocolate]

Why do so many people go to middle eastern countries, not take into account their laws/customs or similar and then its spread all over the news that they are being punished for breaking the law?
This stupid woman MUST have known... The news is always littered with stories of tourists being in trouble, it would take a 5 minute google research to know of these tablets were banned. Even without a quick google, the knowledge that these are prescription only opiates, most people would surely think, well I don't have a prescription for these, or a Drs note explaining why I need them, there's absolutely no flipping way im travelling with these!
The husband would have known to have even asked her.
290 pills isn't a small amount.
Sadly she's in trouble for what she's done, and she doesn't deserve the media coverage. Just play by the rules.

[CamperVamp]

She has been played by this man. Which is sad. Even her family say (in so many words) she is a bit dim.

I don’t wish her ill. She has spent all this time in horrendous conditions in jail fearing the death penalty, which should be enough to get her to think twice in future. I hope she is released soon,

[MardAsSnails]

You can bring tramadol into Dubai with prescription, but if they find it you'll be questioned. If you are prescribed for example 2 per day and you're here for 7 days, why have you got more than 14? Legitimately you could say 1 or 2 more in case of flight delays. If you had 100 when you needed 14? Nobody would believe you and you'd be in the shit.

You can even get it here in prescription. But it's a controlled substance and they won't give you more than 7 days at a time and you must pick up the prescription the same day or it's cancelled in the system so you can't stockpile prescriptions to collect at once.

I struggle to believe anyone is naive enough to taken 290 of the things to Egypt, without prescription, when you've got a so-called husband living there who must know the punishments involved. There again, she has married the guy and I struggle to believe anyone's that naive either, so what do I know.

And if it's a bad back he has, why did he need 290? As a PP said they got away with a few on a used strip. Much less likely to be detected (yes I know still illegal). Surely if he needed them for pain relief this would be a better way to get him some pain relief - there's absolutely no legitimate excuse for that quantity she took.

[OrchidDelight]

Funny what do you mean it is a true story? Do you mean that you think she genuinely does believe her husband is genuine and has back pain? Do you also believe the husband is genuine and she was trying to help him?

[Funnyonion17]

I dont know her personally (just some of her family) but yes from what I've read I think she has been mislead by this man. I've not asked any of her family as I don't know them well enough

[megletthesecond]

BBC news were treading cautiously around this story. I was a bit .

[Annabelle4]

Foolish woman

What kind of a sentence is she looking at?

[ItsNachoCheese]

The whole story is very dodgy. How the hell did she get her hands on 290 tramadol? It certainly wasnt from the good doctor anyway

[hmmwhatatodo]

I could quite believe that he told her he needed them for himself whereas he was actually selling them to make profit. Who knows if his wife and 4 children had any idea about what was going on. I doubt we will see him standing up and protesting for her release. He will be claiming to know nothing about any of it if he is ever asked.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

From a work colleague according to one of the links upthread.

I'm not sure being misled helps her much. Even if his story was true, she'd still have broken the law and trafficked illegal drugs into the country in a way that she must have realised was wrong.