Brit beautician facing 60yrs in US prison after ‘trying to smuggle £3.5m of cocaine from Mexico holiday in suitcases’

A BRITISH beautician is facing up to 60 years in jail in America for allegedly bringing £3.5m worth of cocaine home from a holiday in Mexico in her suitcases.

Kim Hall, 28, was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare airport as she was waiting for her connecting flight to Manchester.

Homeland Security investigators swooped after finding 43kg of cocaine in two suitcases.

But Kim insists she was forced to carry the bags for two men who had offered her a free holiday to Cancun but threatened her once she was there.

And her desperate family back home in Britain insist that all she is guilty of is “stupidity and naivety”.

Her dad John, 59, said she was offered the free holiday by people she met on an earlier trip to Portugal.

They claimed they were property developers and invited her to stay with them.

But while there they coerced her into carrying two suitcases home which they had packed and which she thought were full of $250,000 in cash, she has told her family.

John said: “She's not a drug smuggler.

“She was told that it would be money she was carrying. They got her phone and threatened her family and that’s why she did it.

“She'd been to Portugal with a friend and met people over there who contacted her when she was back saying they were into real estate in Mexico and she could go for a free holiday.

“Her friend declined but she said she would go.

“She's never been into trouble, nothing at all. She’s had a good upbringing and has always worked for her money.

“The only thing she's guilty of is being stupid and being naive.”

Kim, a self-employed beautician, of Middlesbrough, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver after her arrest in August.

As the amount she was allegedly found with is more than 900 grams the offence is in the top bracket for sentencing – it is a Class X Felony which carries 15-60 years in prison.

She has already made a number of preliminary appearances at the Circuit Court of Cook County and is being held in Chicago awaiting trial, which could be a year off.

Her family, who have had to shell out £28,000 for a local attorney, are terrified about her physical and mental well-being.

John added: “For the first few weeks, you couldn't speak to her for the tears.

“She said: ‘You don't understand what they were threatening me with’. That's as much as we can get out of her.

“She's petrified.

“Without a shadow of a doubt she was forced into carrying this stuff back. And I'm not just saying that to try and protect my daughter.

“I'm telling you that as a father who knows a daughter inside out.”

A Cook County court spokeswoman said: “Her next appearance is on November 13.”