Peru Two drugs mule Michaella McCollum says she was “seduced” by shady gangsters into trying to smuggle €1.7million of cocaine.
The 24-year-old was jailed in 2013 with Melissa Reid after they were caught with the drugs in their bags heading to Madrid.
They risked a 15-year prison term but struck a secret plea bargain deal to secure a shorter sentence.
McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, served two years and three months of a six-year sentence before being paroled.
The mum of 18-month-old twin sons has now penned a book admitting she was a willing smuggler after being offered €6,000 for the drugs run.
She said she was recruited in Ibiza by a Cockney dealer called “Davey” who asked her to import cocaine from Barcelona.
It was at a later meeting with a Colombian that McCollum was told she would be bringing the drugs from Peru.
She wrote: “I had no idea where Peru was. No clue. I thought it was another Spanish town.”
McCollum said she was told customs officials in the South American country had been bribed to let the drugs through.
She described posing as a tourist along with Reid in Lima before being given two “bulging” holdalls of cocaine.
In the book You’ll Never See Daylight Again, she wrote: “I was dumbfounded by what was unfolding.
“Now that I could see the scale of the operation, I was more convinced than ever we were about to get screwed.”
McCollum said when the bags got past sniffer dogs at the airport she thought they were in the clear.
But she added: “Then I realised Melissa was no longer standing next to me. She was being led by the arm into a room behind the check-in desk.
“Her bags were being carried there too. Behind her were six men wielding semi-automatic weapons.
“Three dogs strained anxiously on their leashes. We’d got away with nothing. The game was up.”
In the book McCollum revealed she was nearly killed in Ancon prison for changing the TV channel.
She said a fellow inmate wrestled a knife off a mentally-ill prisoner who was about to murder her.
