ReturnOfJudah
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Ex-flight attendant caught smuggling 100 lbs. of deadly new drug made of human bones faces decades in prison
A former flight attendant caught smuggling over 100 pounds of a deadly new synthetic drug made of human bones faces up to 25 years in a Sri Lankan prison.
Charlotte May Lee, 21, from the United Kingdom, was seized at Bandaranaike Airport in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo earlier this month after allegedly carrying suitcases full of “kush,” a new drug originating in West Africa which kills an estimated dozen people a week in Sierra Leone alone.
Lee, from south London, claimed the drug stash — which has a reported street value of $3.3 million — was planted in her suitcases without her knowledge, her lawyer, Sampath Perera, told the BBC.
She is being held in harsh conditions in a jail north of Colombo where she has to sleep on a concrete floor, though Perera said she’s been in contact with her family.
The haul made on May 12 is the biggest seizure of the relatively new drug in Sri Lankan history.
Customs officers posed proudly with the stash, which could land Lee a 25-year prison sentence if she is found guilty of smuggling.
Lee had been working in Thailand when she was forced to leave because her 30-day visa was due to run out, so she decided to take a three-hour flight to Sri Lanka while she waited for the renewal of her Thai visa, her lawyer said.
“I had never seen them [the drugs] before. I didn’t expect it 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 prison.
One of the drug’s many ingredients is reportedly human bones, and the insatiable desire for the substance has even led to ghoulish grave robbers raiding cemeteries in Sierra Leone.
The country’s president declared a state of emergency over abuse of kush last year, while security has reportedly been tightened in graveyards to stop the digging up of skeletons.
