• last month
They tried to leave Peru with 24 pounds of cocaine in their luggage. Then, they said it was never theirs.

This is the story of the two 20-year-olds who became international drug dealers, the "Peru Two."
Transcript
00:00They attempted to get on a plane from Peru with 24 pounds of cocaine in their suitcases.
00:04This is a story of Melissa Reed and Michaela McCollum, also known as the Peru Two.
00:10I was forced to take these bags in my luggage.
00:14The public were obsessed with this story.
00:16There was a fascination around her bun.
00:20She was in fact getting up at one point.
00:23I was very young and naive.
00:24It's August 6, 2013, at the International Airport of Lima, the capital of Peru.
00:35Melissa Reed and Michaela McCollum, both 20 years old, are arrested by the Peruvian police.
00:41What's your name?
00:42Melissa Reed.
00:43What's your nationality?
00:45British.
00:47From what you could see on the TV, when it was shown on various news channels,
00:53this footage showed two young women who looked absolutely terrified
00:57of what they had gotten themselves into.
00:59What's your name?
01:00Michaela McCollum.
01:02Michaela.
01:03What's your nationality?
01:05Irish.
01:08Like other foreigners before them,
01:09Melissa and Michaela tried leaving Peru with a colossal amount of cocaine.
01:14Your note contains drugs.
01:19After walking past two sniffer dogs undetected,
01:23an officer decides to search their luggage.
01:26The agent finds 24 pounds of cocaine hidden in various food packages
01:30placed between their clothes.
01:33The quantity found between the two suitcases amounts to $1.8 million worth of cocaine.
01:41Michaela was just like any other young woman from Northern Ireland.
01:46She came from a rural background.
01:48She wanted to be a model.
01:50I know she had done some work dancing in clubs and things like that.
01:54And then she made the decision, like a lot of young women and men would do
01:59at that stage in their lives, is to go to Spain and work and party and have fun.
02:12Melissa Reed came from a really good background.
02:15She had a good family.
02:16Like Michaela, she was going out to Spain to have fun.
02:20Both Melissa and Michaela, you would never in a million years
02:23believe that they would turn into international drug smugglers.
02:28Michaela and Melissa both risk up to 15 years of prison.
02:32Prior to news breaking that the Peru 2 were arrested at Lima airport,
02:40we had been working on a story involving Michaela McCallum
02:43and the fact that she had gone missing in Ibiza.
02:47People were worried for her.
02:48Her family were making pleas to the media.
02:52They were putting out social media posts about trying to find her.
02:56And also celebrities and sports stars were helping in that search to find her.
03:02Melissa and Michaela claimed to Peruvian authorities
03:05that they were forced to transport the drugs on behalf of someone else.
03:09I was forced to take these bags in my luggage.
03:14These bags in my luggage.
03:16She was in fact kidnapped, held at gunpoint and forced by threat.
03:24At the time of her arrest, people here were fundraising for clothes,
03:31for necessities, for food to be sent to her within jail.
03:34During the trial that occurs a few days after their arrest,
03:46the judge refuses to believe their story.
04:05When Michaela was waitressing and picking up bits of work, bar work in Ibiza,
04:20she came into contact with an individual.
04:22And apparently Jake was the link to the underworld,
04:27the drugs underworld that brought Michaela and Melissa Reid into carrying these drugs.
04:35After initially claiming they were forced to smuggle drugs,
04:39it is revealed that they were supposed to earn €4,500 each for the job.
04:43Michaela and Melissa decide to plead guilty in the hopes of receiving a more lenient sentence.
04:48The public began to realize that Michaela and Melissa were more involved in this
04:54than they wanted people to believe.
04:56And the public support, most definitely in Northern Ireland,
05:00kind of went away for Michaela McCollum.
05:05Their story fascinates the British press, who names them the Peru Two.
05:17The public were obsessed with this story.
05:20There was a fascination around her bun, the Peru Two bun.
05:23It was very strange.
05:25I mean, we even had children dressing up as them for Halloween
05:29a couple of months after they were arrested.
05:31It was just absolutely crazy.
05:35Melissa and Michaela are eventually sentenced to six years and eight months in a Peruvian prison.
05:43I haven't been fed, haven't got anything to eat today.
05:45The conditions inside the holding cells are pretty grim.
05:51There were massive milestones that I had to, you know,
05:54experience my time in a horrible condition prison, you know, sleeping on the floor.
05:58And I've lost a lot of years of my life, you know, due to drugs.
06:02It was a really, really, really difficult time for both my family and I.
06:06I travelled out to Peru.
06:07We went to the jail and I was able to get inside and speak to her.
06:11The inside of the prison is controlled by the prisoners and the conditions were,
06:16I mean, the walls were cracked from earthquakes.
06:20There was insects just a world away from what a prison would be like here in the UK.
06:26After 10 months of detention, Michaela and Melissa transferred to a new high-security prison,
06:31known for being even tougher.
06:34This is one of Peru's most secure prisons.
06:37It is also one of the most notorious, some here call it Hell's Hacienda.
06:43In 2013, the prison has over 300 foreign inmates,
06:47including around 100 women, primarily incarcerated for cocaine trafficking.
06:52They said to me, they'll even try and fight for your innocence.
06:55There's no innocence.
07:00To me, it's like I'm living in the devil's house.
07:06After a little over two years in detention,
07:08Melissa and Michaela are finally released and deported from Peru to the United Kingdom.
07:14At such a young age, to be thrown into an international spotlight,
07:19to be thrown into an international spotlight and to become an international drug dealer,
07:24she has to be a very strong person to get through what she got through.
07:31Since her release, Melissa Reid has resumed a normal life in Scotland.
07:35As for Michaela McCallum, she has become an influencer
07:38and has even written a book to share her experience
07:40and raise awareness about the dangers of drugs.
07:44I feel like I've learned a lot of things from my time in Peru
07:47and I feel like I've grown a lot as a person
07:49and I feel a lot stronger, you know, since I've been released.
07:54I wouldn't trust people easy as I used to, you know, I'm not as naive or immature as I was
07:58and, you know, I've just learned to be a better person
08:00and, you know, be able to say no to situations that I might feel uncomfortable with.
08:13you