A British former air stewardess accused of bringing millions of pounds’ worth of synthetic cannabis into Sri Lanka has been moved to another prison after deadly riots claimed 30 lives.
Charlotte May Lee has spent almost 18 months in custody over allegations that she attempted to smuggle 46kg of synthetic cannabis, reportedly valued at £1.2million, into the country.
The former TUI employee, who has reportedly been left ‘traumatised’, has not been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to 25 years in prison.
People close to the 22-year-old, from Coulsdon in south London, say she was transferred from the notorious Negombo prison, around 20 miles north of Colombo, amid concerns for her safety following riots earlier this year that killed 30 people.
Ten prison officers and 20 inmates died in July when a two-day riot erupted between rival gangs inside the overcrowded facility.
Negombo prison was designed to hold 650 prisoners, but approximately 2,400 inmates were reportedly being held there when the violence began.
The Daily Mirror has cited sources who say Lee is ‘coping well’ after being moved to the nearby Kuliyapitiya prison.
One source said: ‘Charlotte was traumatised by the riots, a lot of people lost their lives.
Charlotte May Lee, 22, has spent almost 18 months in custody over the ‘drug mule’ allegations
The ‘traumatised’ former TUI employee has not been formally charged and could receive a 25-year sentence if convicted
Sri Lankan authorities allegedly discovered 46kg of synthetic cannabis, reportedly worth £1.2million, in Lee’s luggage (pictured)
‘When the riots happened at Negombo, people were worried about her safety but she survived and has now been moved.
‘She is alone in a foreign country, and it is very frightening. But she is now in Kuliyappitiya prison.’
The source also said Lee is trying to learn the local language after finding the ‘language barrier’ extremely difficult.
They said Lee is ‘desperate to get home’, although ‘she knows there’s nothing she can do’.
Sri Lankan authorities allegedly found 46kg of synthetic cannabis in the former TUI stewardess’s luggage at Colombo airport in May last year, leading to her arrest.
The drugs were reportedly worth £1.2million and had been packed in vacuum-sealed bags, but Lee insists she had ‘no idea’ they were in her luggage.
She says the drugs were placed in her luggage without her knowledge while she was on holiday in Bangkok, Thailand.
Lee previously described being forced to share a cell with five other women and sleep on a thin mattress laid across the concrete floor.
Her lawyer, Sampath Perera, said his priority was to ‘ensure that our client receives appropriate legal representation’.
Legal sources in the country previously told the Daily Mail that, if convicted, Lee faces being sent to Welikada prison in Colombo – Sri Lanka’s largest, maximum security jail.
This newspaper revealed last year how the Welikada prison, where Lee was previously held, has a miserable history and has been described as a ‘hell’ for female prisoners in particular.
Maggots were reportedly found around food and rats seen scuttling around extremely overcrowded cells.
Speaking a year ahead of the deadly riots that took place in 2012, an anonymous female prisoner said: ‘We are treated as far less than human.
‘About 150 of us sleep in a cell designed for 75 people. An open drain infested with rats runs the perimeter of the room.
‘Recently, one of the inmates was bitten and had to be rushed to the hospital for an anti-rabies shot.’
Likening the prison to ‘hell’, another woman told Al Jazeera back in 2011: ‘There are 650 of us in the female ward though it was built for 150 people.
The 22-year-old claims the drugs were planted in her luggage without her knowledge
She is ‘desperate to get home’ but that ‘she knows there’s nothing she can do’, a source said
Legal sources in the country previously told the Daily Mail that, if convicted, Lee faces being sent to Welikada prison in Colombo – Sri Lanka’s largest, maximum security jail
‘We eat, bathe, sleep, wake up and begin all over again. There are no attempts at rehabilitation. Women here just waste away.’
A year later the prison, previously known for its 1983 massacre which saw 55 Tamil prisoners killed by Sinhalese inmates, was back in the headlines.
Prison riots that broke out in November 2012 left 27 inmates dead and more than 40 injured in what was quickly called a ‘massacre’.
In 2022 former Prisons Commissioner Emil Lamahewage was convicted over the killings and handed the death penalty for the incident, which the courts said saw eight people called forward by name and shot dead.
In 2018, female protestors took to the roof of the prison demanding to be released on bail calling out the delays in their court cases.
And in November 2020, as the Covid pandemic shut down large parts of the world, another riot broke out in the prison.
Inmates had launched a protest over the surge in Covid infections in the prisons and started demanding to be released on bail early or to be given better facilities.
Eight people were said to have died that day, with 52 people injured, after inmates clashed with guards, with police officers saying that they ‘used force to control an unruly situation’.
Sri Lanka is facing a crisis with overcrowding in its prisons across the country – with the country’s prison department claiming there are ‘too many jailbirds, not enough jail guards’.
Last year the country’s Parliament was told that prisons across the country were more than 20,000 beyond its capacity.
Meanwhile, prisons were short of nearly 850 female and male prison guards, according to local newspaper Sunday Times.
The overcrowded nature of the country’s prisons raises the question of whether this will affect the judge’s sentencing decision, if Lee were found guilty of drug smuggling charges.
Lee, who was training to become an eyelash technician, attended Negombo Magistrates Court last year accused of two charges: one of possessing illegal drugs and another of importing illegal drugs into Sri Lanka.
During the court hearing she was given a detention order to remain in the country.
A legal source who witnessed the case told the Daily Mail: ‘She arrived at court and she seemed completely lost.
‘She was crying a lot and was all on her own. It looked like she didn’t have any idea about what was going on.
If found guilty of the charges against her, she faces being sent to Welikada Prison (pictured) in the capital Colombo – the country’s largest, maximum security jail
The Welikada prison has a miserable past and has been described as a ‘hell’ for female prisoners in particular
Maggots have reportedly been found food, while rats are seen scuttling around extremely overcrowded cells at Welikada
‘She will either have to pay a fine or she will be sent to Welikada Prison in Colombo.’
It is unknown at present which prison, if any, Lee could be taken to if found guilty of the charges brought against her.
The haul of drugs, which according to police was the largest ever amount of illegal substances found in the airport, was intended for ‘high-end local buyers’.
Shocking video footage provided to the Daily Mail shows two large suitcases in front of dozens of airtight bags of the illegal substance and a group of narcotics detectives who uncovered the alleged smuggling.
In the background of the clip, a British woman’s accent can be heard.
Pictures from the scene show six officers in the airport standing over two large suitcases and dozens of large vacuum-packed bags of the drug.
Officials from the Customs Narcotics Control Unit in the airport said it is the largest amount of Kush ever to be detected since the international hub opened.
Sources close to the investigation said the ‘massive consignment’ is worth around 460million Sri Lankan rupees.
The drugs, which have now been seized, were allegedly found ‘tightly packed in luggage’ and are believed to have been intended for ‘high-end local buyers’.
According to Lee’s friends she has posted on Snapchat claiming she was being held at a police headquarters in Sri Lanka.
One woman, close to the cabin crew member turned lash technician, said she was shocked when she heard the allegation as Lee was a ‘nice girl’ and a ‘hard worker’.
The friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it. She’s a hard worker and a grafter. We are shocked. I am in total shock. She’s a nice girl.’
Another friend said: ‘She is a really nice girl, there were no red flags or anything. We saw clips of the arrest and we could hear an English woman, who sounded very much like Charlotte in the background.’
Meanwhile a family friend told The Sun at the time: ‘We’re frantically worried. She was arrested then seemingly abandoned and is rotting in a jail cell. She’s very scared.’
Another added: ‘She’s been told that if convicted, because of the size of the drugs haul, she is looking at between 20 and 25 years in jail. British Embassy staff warned her she’s going nowhere soon.’
Lee had previously worked as a cabin crew member for TUI, yet friends have said this was only a ‘summer contract’.
Her social media accounts show her appearing to have a great time working for the travel company, posing in her stewardess uniform and even in the cockpit of one of the planes.
Since then the young woman who grew up in south London, was training to become a lash technician.
Other photos shared on her social media show her living the typical life of a young woman in her early twenties – out drinking at the pub with friends or dancing at nightclubs.
Lee, according to friends, first flew out to Thailand in April to celebrate her 21st birthday with her older sister who was meeting her from Australia, where she lives.
Following the holiday, Lee is said to have returned to Coulsdon, telling mates that she ‘loved Thailand and wanted to work out there’.
She mentioned that ‘she had a job on a boat’ in the south-east Asian country but according to her friend did not mention any immediate plans of returning.
The young woman began posting pictures again of beautiful white sand beaches and selfies of her partying abroad.
And the day of her arrest, she had posted a TikTok of herself on a plane, wearing a facemask, as she flew over a pretty island.
She tagged the location of the video as Bangkok.
Days later, after rumours about Lee’s arrest began in Coulsdon, she is said to have sent some friends a Snapchat from Sri Lankan custody, briefly filming herself and assuring them she was OK.
The friend, who spoke to the Mail, added: ‘No one has heard from her in a few days. Her Snapchat did go live at one point but whether it was her or the police we don’t know.
‘She went travelling to Thailand for her 21st birthday and her sister paid for her to go out there as her birthday present. That was in April at some point.
‘She was back here [in the UK] in May and then she was off again. But she did not mention she was going away, nothing was said.
‘And previously she would have said [about her plans]. When she got back the first time she did say she loved it.
‘I asked her what about going to Australia, as there’s nothing here, and she said she should look into it one day. But that was it.’
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are supporting a British woman who was arrested in Sri Lanka and remain in contact with her family and the local authorities.’