SRI LANKA- A former flight attendant for TUI, a “holiday” airline, finds herself in a prison in Sri Lanka after she was caught allegedly smuggling 100 pounds of “kush,” a highly addictive synthetic drug composed of human bones, the New York Post reports. If convicted, Charlotte May Lee, 21, faces up to 25 years in prison.
Lee, who hails from the United Kingdom, was picked up at Bandaranaike Airport in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo early in May carrying suitcases full of the drug, which originates in West Africa. The deadly drug kills an estimated dozen people per week in Sierra Leone alone.
Lee denies she was smuggling the drug into the country and claims the stash, worth an estimated $3.3 million on the street, was planted in her suitcases without her knowledge, her attorney told the BBC.
Her attorney, Sampath Perera, said she is being held in “harsh” conditions in a jail north of the capital city and has to sleep on a concrete floor. She has, however, been allowed to keep in contact with her family.
Sri Lankan authorities say the May 12 seizure is the largest such one of kush in the country’s history.
Lee had been working in Thailand when she had to leave due to her 30-day visa nearing expiration. She decided to take the three-hour flight to Sri Lanka while she waited for her Thai visa to be renewed, Perera said.
“I had never seen them [the drugs] before. I didn’t expect it at all when they pulled me over at the airport. I thought it was going to be filled with all my stuff,” Lee told the Daily Mail from jail. She gave the impression she knew who allegedly “planted” the drugs in her suitcases, but refused to name them.
“They must have planted it then,” she said. “I know who did it.”
Kush, particularly popular with young men, can cause narcolepsy in individuals, with some falling asleep while walking. Others collapse unexpectedly or even wander into moving traffic.
The drug contains several ingredients, but the most macabre of them is human bones. There are reports that the desire for the drug has led to people robbing graves at cemeteries throughout Sierra Leone.
The president of Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency over the abuse of kush last year, while security has been tightened at graveyards to prevent theft from graves. President Julius Maada Bio called the drug a “death trap” and said the drug posed an “existential crisis” to the country, much as fentanyl has done the same in the United States.
Lee isn’t the only British woman facing drug smuggling charges. Bella Culley from County Durham in northeast England was arrested in the nation of Georgia on May 10 after flying to the capital of Tbilisi via the UAE with over 30 pounds of marijuana and hash in her luggage.
Culley is accused of “illegally purchasing and storing a particularly large amount of narcotics, illegally purchasing and storing the narcotic drug marijuana, and illegally importing it into Georgia,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement earlier this year.
According to Sri Lankan authorities, the arrival of drugs from Bangkok has increased significantly.
“Another passenger who had left Bangkok airport, almost at the same time, was arrested in another country. We arrested this lady [Lee] based on profiling,” a Sri Lankan customs official told the BBC.
This has been a real nuisance,” he continued, referring to the scourge of drugs.
