The British girls who 'tried to smuggle £1.5m of cocaine out of Peru in their suitcases' have confessed, police claims

Pictured at the moment when they were arrested, these are the two British girls accused of trying to smuggle cocaine worth more than £1.5million out of Peru in their suitcases.

Police in Lima claimed last night that Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum Connolly had confessed their guilt.

The pair, who face lengthy sentences, have yet to be formally quizzed because officers have not been supplied with an English-speaking translator.

But Major Manuel Siclla, who heads the investigation, said: ‘They have admitted it informally to me and officers at the airport who arrested them. 

'They are okay but are obviously worried about their families and what the future holds for them.

‘Like anyone else involved in drugs smuggling, they will be tried and face long prison sentences if convicted. We take this problem very seriously in Peru and courts are very strict about enforcing the law.’

Former shop worker Miss Reid, 19, from Lenzie near Glasgow, and dancer Miss McCollum Connolly, 20, from Dungannon, County Tyrone, were arrested last Tuesday morning as they prepared to board an Air Europa flight from Lima to Madrid before taking a second plane to their final destination in Majorca.

The pair are thought to have been recruited as drug mules on the promise of an all-expenses-paid holiday to Peru plus £8,000 each in cash by gang masters in Ibiza, where they had gone to work in bars and clubs over the summer.

I can only imagine what their parents will be going through now.