A young British woman whose family said was last seen in Thailand has been arrested 6,500 kilometres away in Georgia, accused of smuggling dozens of bags of cannabis into the country.
Georgian police said officers seized 12 kilogrammes of marijuana and two kilogrammes of hashish found in a travel bag belonging to Bella Culley, 18, at Tbilisi International Airport.
The Georgian interior ministry said the young woman from Billingham in county Durham was facing life imprisonment, which is 20 years minimum.
Ms Culley did not speak during an initial hearing before she was sent to an all-female pre-trial detention facility in the city of Rustavi, her Georgian lawyer said.
The young Briton had not been heard from since May 10, when she failed to check in on Facetime with her mother, Lyanne Kennedy, as planned, according to British media reports.
Her father, who lives in Vietnam, flew to Bangkok last weekend to find out more, only to discover on Tuesday that she had been detained in Georgia.
Ms Kennedy said her daughter, who was hoping to go to nursing school, had flown to the Philippines last month with a friend and was there for three weeks.
On April 16, she posted a video on TikTok appearing to show her in the Philippines, with the caption: “Needed a hug but instead made the biggest decision of my life and found peace in another country’s culture and way of life.”
She went to Thailand on May 3, reportedly to meet friends she had made on a previous trip that her mother didn’t know.
The 18-year-old had posted videos and images from both of her trips, which included snorkelling, visiting caves and seeing turtles. Her last posts were on May 9, a day before she was reported missing.
‘Wads of cash’
However, other TikTok and Instagram posts surfaced on social media showing her holding wads of cash, and allegedly smoking cannabis while riding in the back of a car. Authorities have yet to comment on these videos.
The Sun newspaper reported that Ms Culley had changed her travel plans after being persuaded by some British men to come to Thailand.
Meanwhile, mystery surrounds a string of company directorships — at least two with Chinese ties — that the young woman appears to hold.
She is also listed as the boss of a firm called Lujamen Limited, whose business is described as “agents specialised in the sale of other particular products”, The Sun reported.
British authorities said last year that seizures of cannabis smuggled from Thailand had risen significantly since the country decriminalised cannabis in 2022.
They said drug smugglers were recruiting people in Britain through chat apps, offering free holidays in Thailand, plus pocket money, in exchange for smuggling cannabis back to Britain.