A British teenager accused of smuggling 30 pounds cannabis through an ex-Soviet nation airport now faces life behind bars in a ‘decaying and overcrowded’ prison.
Bella May Culley, 18, sparked a massive international search operation in recent days after she was reported missing while she was believed to be holidaying in Thailand.
Last night it was revealed the teen, from Billingham, County Durham, had been arrested 4,000 miles away on drug offences in Georgia.
Footage shared by local broadcasters appeared to show the 18-year-old being walked into the Central Criminal Police Department in Tbilisi while in handcuffs.
Culley had allegedly being caught carrying 30 pounds (14kg) of cannabis into the ex-Soviet nation after she was flagged during a scanner check at Tbilisi International Airport.
During an inspection, ’34 hermetically sealed packages containing marijuana were found in the passenger’s bag, as well as 20 packages of hashish,’ local media has claimed.
The 18-year-old was reportedly charged with illegally purchasing and storing a particularly large amount of narcotics, illegally purchasing and storing the narcotic drug marijuana, and illegally importing it into Georgia.
The country’s Interior Ministry has said the committed crime ‘envisions up to 20 years – or life imprisonment,’ and while she requested bail, the judge overseeing the case decided to imprison her as she posed a flight risk, local media reported.
Now, the British teen could face two decades or more behind bars in the country’s only female prison, Tbilisi Prison No.5, located 45 minutes away from the ex-Soviet capital.
Stark photographs of the facilities sterile interior show what the life the teen could face if convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in Georgia – in a lock up reports say is decaying.
When reports first emerged of Culley vanishing, it was believed she was on holiday in southeast Asia, as she was last believed to be in the Pattaya area, near Bangkok. Her phone was also believed to have been turned off.
Cleveland Police have since said authorities in Georgia have confirmed that ‘an 18-year-old woman from Billingham’ had been arrested ‘on suspicion of drugs offences and that she remains in their custody.’
The teenager’s family previously said she first flew out to the Philippines just after Easter this year and had then flown to Thailand around May 3.
Culley had been regularly posting on social media and last shared a picture to Facebook on Monday, May 5.
Her distraught family initially appealed for help to trace her whereabouts, with police in Thailand also involved in the search.
Culley, who recently finished a course at Middlesbrough College with the aim of becoming a nurse, was in regular contact with her mother Lyanne Kennedy.
She was scheduled to speak with her on Saturday. Her father Neil Culley and her aunt, Kerrie, had travelled to the southeast Asian country in a bid to get answers.
But now, she faces time in Tbilisi Prison No.5.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report into the lock up previously criticised the ‘severely overcrowded’ facility after they alongside Amnesty International and Penal Reform International urged the Georgian government to end ill-treatment in their prisons in 2006.
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (CPT) described the conditions at No 5 as ‘degrading’, ‘inhuman’ and as such ‘an affront to a civilised society’ that same year.
A HRW report also detailed the facility as being in a ‘state of disrepair’ at the time, with ‘crumbling’ walls and floors with some inmates having to sit on ‘two tier metal bunk beds’ when they were not sleeping.
The bathroom were described as ‘decaying and flithy’, while all the cells were said to have smelled ‘strongly of human sweat, human excrement, and cigarette smoke,’ with garbage also found scattered near cell doors.
Before police confirmed Culley’s arrest, her mother Lyanne told Teesside Live: ‘She flew out to the Philippines after Easter with a friend and she was there for three weeks.
‘She was posting loads of pictures and then she went to Thailand on about May 3.
‘The last message she sent was to me and that was on Saturday at 5.30pm saying she was going to Facetime me later.
‘That was the last message anyone has received from what we can figure out up to now.
‘I’m just waiting on her dad who is now in Bangkok to get back with any more information. I just want her home and safe or to hear her gorgeous little voice.’
Her distraught mother had also told the Sun that she had a bad feeling about the 18-year-old’s trip to Thailand.
‘I really didn’t want her to go to Thailand. I begged her to come home. I don’t trust some of the boys over there,’ she said.
‘But she wanted to meet up with some friends she made over there on a previous trip. I don’t know who any of them are.’
When Culley’s father Neil was told by officers at the Bangkok police station to contact the country’s immigration bureau to figure out where she was last staying.
The family previously contacted an airline, who revealed that Culley had made a request for a ticket but the payment never went through.
Lyanne said: ‘When she stopped answering messages I assumed it was because she was flying back to surprise me. But then nothing.’
The distraught mother added: ‘We think she was last near Pattaya, and was supposed to fly back from Bangkok via Frankfurt according to the itinerary.’
‘But I never heard anything about picking her up.’