A drug mule who served time in a Peru jail hellhole after being busted with €1.6million (£1.37m) of cocaine says one of her biggest regrets is doing drugs off of a McDonald’s table.
Michaella McCollum, 28, was busted with the Class A drug in 2013 along with Scottish accomplice Melissa Reid, who became known as the ‘Peru Two’.
The two 20-year-olds were jailed in 2013 after 11kg of cocaine was found in their luggage at a Lima airport.
Michaella, from Ireland, said she was high on drugs when she agreed to be a smuggler, but had believed she only had to go on a trip from Ibiza to Barcelona.
She released a new edition of her memoirs last week and is now calling her book High – the same title as the documentary series which begins on BBC on Monday, the Irish Mirror reports.
In the book she details how she had been partying hard and taking drugs constantly by the point she was asked by a man called Davey to smuggle drugs across Europe.
Michaella revealed: “I’d taken so much of all of them during the five weeks I’d been there that I honestly didn’t see the problem.
“We were in that Ibizan bubble. In my addled logic, everyone I knew took drugs and they had to get them from somewhere.
(Image: michaella_mccollum/Instagram)
(Image: Michaella McCollum/Instagram)
“I saw lifting this package no differently to how I would see some kind of cash-in-hand payment.
“Not legal, as such, but a minor crime at worst, like a traffic offence.
“As the party wore on, I got more and more drawn into the hedonistic mood of the day. Everyone was high and, just to make things even more animated, I was persuaded by a group of friends to drop some acid.
(Image: REUTERS)
“At one point I could have sworn one of the club staff was a train conductor trying to show me to my seat.
“Another time, I was seeing Disney characters everywhere.
“Basically, of all the drugs, acid is not the one to be on when there are decisions to be made.
“By the time Davey caught up with me later, I might as well have been in outer space.”
(Image: REUTERS)
After partying through the night, Michaella was set for the drugs run early in the morning but there was a stop to be made before the airport.
She explained: “When Davey said we were meeting someone at McDonald’s I thought he was a mind reader. I desperately needed coffee and breakfast.
“I ordered the full works and was just about to tuck in when a familiar face bowled in.
“It was Davey’s business partner – the Brummie. Some things don’t change.
“Our breakfasts were on two trays in front of us. The first thing the Brummie did was swat them aside then lay down lines of K [ketamine] and coke [cocaine].
“Of everything I’ve done, everything that I regret, sniffing Class A drugs off a table in McDonald’s is up there. But that’s hindsight for you.”
