How the British girl stuck with report hashish haul in Sri Lanka is telling police it is all of the fault of a thriller guy known as Dan she met on a seaside

As her airplane soared excessive into the sky above Bangkok, Charlotte May Lee wasted no time getting settled in.

SriLankan Airlines Flight UL 405 had slightly left the runway earlier than the 21-year-old part-time beautician from Surrey slapped on a hydrating in-flight facial masks and glued in her earphones.

If the previous Tui air stewardess used to be worried about what lay in retailer for her in Sri Lanka then she confirmed no signal.

A short lived video filmed only a few mins into her three-hour 15-minute flight and in an instant posted on TikTookay displays her staring defiantly into the digicam because the Thai sea coast disappears throughout the window in the back of her.

She did not glance somewhat so cocky within the police mugshot taken later that day at Bandaranaike International Airport after a staggering 101lb (46kg) of super-strong, artificial ‘kush’ hashish used to be discovered stashed in her baggage.

It is the biggest haul ever found out on the airport within the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

If convicted of drug smuggling, Charlotte faces as much as 25 years in a difficult maximum-security prison.

Now an unique investigation through the Mail can expose main points of this younger British girl’s dramatic interrogation through police and the account – or accounts – she desperately gave them when requested to provide an explanation for the colossal amount of substances allegedly present in her luggage.

If the previous Tui air stewardess used to be worried about what lay in retailer for her in Sri Lanka then she confirmed no signal. Pictured: Charlotte May Lee in her TUI cabin group uniform

A staggering 101lb (46kg) of super-strong, artificial ‘kush’ hashish used to be discovered stashed in Charlotte’s baggage

For whilst she insists she is blameless, police resources in Colombo have instructed us she has already modified her tale a number of instances, in the long run claiming {that a} British guy – anyone she had spent simply 3 days with within the Thai vacation lodge of Koh Phi Phi – should be in charge for the unlawful haul.

The guy, stated through Charlotte to be British however of Pakistani foundation and it seems that identified to her best as ‘Dan’, allegedly purchased her airline price tag, telling her he needed to stay in Bangkok to peer a chum however would sign up for her quickly.

He additionally supplied and packed her suitcases and gave her money for the airline’s extra luggage rate, allegedly telling her that one of the most items of bags she checked in held his personal garments and property.

Sri Lanka, she claims ‘Dan’ instructed her, used to be a ‘pretty position for a vacation’. He promised they’d have a ‘glorious time’ travelling across the nation.

Describing roof repairer’s daughter Charlotte as ‘determined and extremely naive’, Sri Lankan police resources say that once they requested for additional information about the mysterious ‘Dan’, Charlotte claimed to not know his surname, the place he comes from in the United Kingdom, and even to have his telephone quantity.

She has additionally insisted she hasn’t ever in the past visited Sri Lanka, however the police dispute this. They say she flew into the rustic in January, even though it isn’t but transparent from the place. 

‘This girl is in numerous bother and won’t assist herself through failing to inform the reality,’ a police supply instructed the Mail.

{A photograph} on Miss Lee’s social media displays her in her former process as a TUI stewardess

‘The investigation is best simply starting and we will be able to be having a look intently at her earlier talk over with, who she used to be with and the place she went.’

To be transparent, Sri Lankan police don’t imagine Charlotte’s tale. They are inspecting her telephone and retracing her steps with the assistance of Thai and British government, a painstaking inquiry which is able to contain monitoring down CCTV in Bangkok. 

In the interim, she has gained visits from British consular officers.

Meanwhile, this unlucky – or foolhardy – younger girl languishes in Negombo jail simply north of the Sri Lankan capital, disadvantaged of the high-fashion clothes and makeup she wears within the copious selfies she posts on social media, complaining that the highly spiced meals is inedible.

Earlier this week, the Mail visited Charlotte in jail, when she claimed she’d by no means observed the medicine nor been to Sri Lanka earlier than, and had best made up our minds to talk over with whilst she waited for her Thai visa to be renewed. 

She insisted, ‘I do know who did it’ when requested who, if no longer her, used to be actually in charge. ‘I did not be expecting it in any respect once they pulled me over within the airport,’ she stated, talking throughout the bars of her cellular to the Mail’s reporter. ‘I assumed it used to be going to be stuffed with all my stuff.

‘I were in Bangkok the night time earlier than and had already packed my garments as a result of my flight used to be actually early. I left my luggage within the resort bed room and headed for the night time out. 

‘As they had been already packed I did not verify them once more within the morning.’ She added: ‘They [the people she believed had planted the drugs] had been intended to fulfill me right here. But now I’m caught right here on this prison.’

Earlier this week, the Mail visited Charlotte in jail, when she claimed she’d by no means observed the medicine nor been to Sri Lanka earlier than, and had best made up our minds to talk over with whilst she waited for her Thai visa to be renewed

So is it actually imaginable that Charlotte used to be duped into turning into a medication mule through a British medication gang working in Thailand? And must we learn the rest into the monitor she selected to accompany

the video selfie she filmed, mid-air – a up to date hip-hop track with

lyrics about the best way to attraction ladies through showering them with extravagant luxuries?

Back in Coulsdon, south London, the place Charlotte grew up and used to be a student at Woodcote High School, a detailed good friend stated this week that she’d ‘been thru a difficult 12 months’ and had not too long ago were given out of an abusive courting.

The good friend added: ‘Her psychological state is fragile. She’s susceptible. She’s a foolish 21-year-old however no longer foolish sufficient to do one thing like this.’ As the good friend identified: ‘She used to be educated as Tui cabin group. She knew the hazards.’

Above all, given her skilled enjoy, she would had been completely acutely aware of without equal safety query requested at check-in through all world airways: ‘Did you pack your luggage your self?’

Charlotte’s arrest on May 12 got here simply two days after that of 18-year-old Bella Culley from Billingham in County Durham at Shota Rustaveli airport within the Georgian capital Tbilisi, after flying from Bangkok – inside of hours of Charlotte – and travelling by the use of Sharjah within the United Arab Emirates.

Bella is claimed to had been sporting 26.4lb (12kg) of hashish and 4.4lb (2kg) of cannabis in her baggage with a boulevard worth of £200,000.

She is now being held within the former Soviet state’s grim Prison Number 5 in Rustavi the place, in an alarming flip of occasions, she instructed officers she is pregnant, one thing jail government have not begun to substantiate.

If convicted of drug smuggling, Charlotte faces as much as 25 years in a difficult maximum-security prison. Pictured: Welikada Prison in Colombo the place British girl Charlotte May-Lee will probably be despatched if convicted of drug smuggling

The detention of each younger ladies comes at a time when British and Thai government have warned of a increase in organised crime gangs in Thailand who’re grooming younger vacationers from the United Kingdom to make use of as drug mules.

According to Tony Saggers, the National Crime Agency’s former head of Drugs Threat and Intelligence: ‘There will probably be standard gross sales pitch – that it is a attempted and examined direction, that they have got were given folks at the within that can assist to deprave the method, that they have got were given couriers who’ve not too long ago travelled who have not been stuck.

‘It will probably be that if you have got no convictions you might be not likely to visit jail, that no person who works for them up to now has been stuck.

‘When you upload them up after which put a couple of 1000’s kilos of rewards at the finish of that, it in reality feels like somewhat a reassuring recruitment marketing campaign.’

Charlotte, who were coaching to be a lash technician at a attractiveness salon in Chipstead, Surrey, first flew out to Thailand in April to have fun her 21st birthday together with her older sister, Sophie, who travelled to fulfill her from Australia the place she lives.

Photographs on her Instagram web page display her in Bangkok on April 5, Koh Samui on April 8 and Phuket on April 18. 

She returned to the United Kingdom against the tip of the month, telling one good friend that she ‘cherished Thailand and sought after to paintings in the market’. Others say she had fallen in love with a British man she known as ‘Rocko’.

Around 4 weeks in the past, she introduced she’d discovered a role on one of the most celebration boat ‘booze cruises’ which excursion Koh Phi Phi, an archipelago of six shocking islands off Thailand’s west coast and a well-liked vacationer vacation spot.

Before returning to Thailand she had paintings executed on her tooth, had hair extensions fitted and purchased clothier luggage and running shoes.

Our resources in Sri Lanka say she instructed police that she met ‘Dan’ at the island of Koh Phi Phi Don. 

From the outline she gave them, they imagine Charlotte used to be staying with the Brit on the three-star Papaya Phi Phi lodge.

According to former Sri Lankan investigator Shanti Mendis: ‘A tender girl travelling on my own from a identified nation like Thailand with an way over baggage – double the standard most – for a vacation would had been a pink flag.

 It is also that from the airline manifest they had been acutely aware of it, however my working out is that it used to be no longer a tip-off from Thai police.

Charlotte’s arrest on May 12 got here simply two days after that of 18-year-old Bella Culley (pictured) from Billingham in County Durham at Shota Rustaveli airport within the Georgian capital Tbilisi, after flying from Bangkok – inside of hours of Charlotte – and travelling by the use of Sharjah within the United Arab Emirates

‘Both customs and police have spotters within the airport, searching for possible smugglers. They may no longer imagine the amounts they discovered throughout the luggage. It is massive – the volume that might come through sea slightly than airplane.’

Bella Culley spark off to the Philippines from the United Kingdom previous this month on what used to be supposed to be a final hurrah vacation earlier than settling right down to a nursing direction.

In a telephone name, she instructed her mom Lyanne that as an alternative of flying directly to Ibiza in Spain, as her good friend used to be doing, she used to be going backpacking thru Thailand and in all probability assembly up with a boy – or a bunch of boys – that she knew from house.

A felony supply in Georgia says that she went to Thailand ‘for romance’ whilst Bella’s 80-year-old grandfather William Culley stated she had long gone to talk over with anyone known as ‘Ross or Russ’.

A circle of relatives good friend of Bella’s in the meantime instructed the Mail ultimate week that she had met suspicious males from Liverpool weeks earlier than her arrest who they imagine could have been taken with smuggling medication.

Another circle of relatives good friend instructed the Sun previous this week that they believed she were ‘totally exploited’ once you have concerned with drug runners.

Organised crime gangs from throughout the United Kingdom, a few of whom had been driven in another country through rival teams from international locations like Albania, have re-established themselves in Thailand during the last decade. 

Bella Culley spark off to the Philippines from the United Kingdom previous this month on what used to be supposed to be a final hurrah vacation earlier than settling right down to a nursing direction. Pictured: Culley being arrested upon arriving in Georgia previous this month

They collaborate with native medication cartels and hashish growers within the north of the rustic which in 2022 was the primary in Asia to decriminalise the drug.

In contemporary weeks, the Thai govt has stated it plans to re-criminalise hashish, apart from scientific utilization, elevating the likelihood that gangs are making an attempt to smuggle up to they may be able to in another country earlier than the clampdown.

In March, Thai police arrested 13 overseas nationals, principally British, for making an attempt to smuggle 826lb (375kg) in another country at Koh Samui airport.

Just ultimate month, alleged British hashish kingpin 30-year-old Adel Mohammed used to be arrested in Bangkok along 11 fellow UK nationals. 

All are accused of seeking to flood London with hashish grown in farms at the Thai island of Koh Samui.

Teenagers and more youthful adults visiting Thailand within the weeks and months forward are being instructed to stay vigilant if they’re approached through fellow Brits providing ‘simple cash’.

As Tony Saggers places it: ‘It’s simply the human psyche that you’re feeling much less intimidated when sitting in a bar chatting to a fellow Brit. 

You virtually turn into much more reassured that the hazards are not somewhat what you worry them to be as a result of it is a fellow Brit telling you the whole lot will probably be all proper.’

Whatever the reality in regards to the medication allegedly discovered of their luggage, it’s transparent that Charlotte May Lee and Bella Culley are a long way from alright.

Both ladies had been interested in Thailand through its glamorous, hedonistic celebration scene. Both now face months, if no longer years, of ready to determine their destiny within the most harsh of prisons.

Innocent or in charge, the continuing agony in their eventualities serves as an impressive caution in regards to the realities of the evil underworld lurking underneath the glamour of Thailand’s sunny seashores and what lies in stay up for the ones tempted to delve into it.