Kim Hall, 28, was caught with 43kg of suspected class A drugs in suitcases at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last August where she was due to get on her connecting flight home to Manchester
A Brit who faces jail in the US after allegedly smuggling £4.6m worth of cocaine in her suitcases from Mexico tried to trick Immigration and Customs Enforcement into deporting her so she could evade justice, it is claimed
Kim Hall, 28, was caught with suspected class A at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last August where she was due to get on her connecting flight home to Manchester. Homeland Security investigators detained the beautician after discovering 43kg of cocaine packed in two suitcases. Kim was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver following her arrest.
The sheer volume of drugs seized means the 28-year-old finds herself facing one of the harshest sentences, with Class X Felonies typically carrying 15-60 years in prison. Previously Kim claimed two men forced her to smuggle the drugs after offering her a free trip to Cancun and then threatening her once she arrived at gunpoint. Her family back home in the UK said “the only thing she’s guilty of is being stupid and being naïve”.
READ MORE: Brit beautician who faces 60 years in US jail for ‘smuggling cocaine’ breaks her silence
But it is claimed that she presented herself to ICE officers in February after being freed on an electronic monitoring tag. Hall was allowed to book a flight and was all set to jet out of Illinois for her native Middlesbrough in England when Cook County Prosecutors heard about the scheme, it is claimed.
The supposed scheme backfired with a judge revoking Hall’s electronic monitoring and sending her to jail, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Judge Michael McHale wrote that Hall was “almost successful in her attempt” to flee the United States and had a flight back to the UK booked before cops realised what was happening. Prosecutors haven’t outlined whether ICE agents were aware of the charges Hall was facing while assisting her in her alleged scheme to flee back to Britain.
Hall’s lawyer Carter alleges that the supposed drug mule was actually apprehended by ICE while inquiring about job opportunities in the United States. Carter’s motion states: “The kiosk official saw the electronic monitoring device on Ms. Hall and assumed it was from ICE and instructed her to go to their office in the same building,’ stated Carter’s motion. “When she spoke to an ICE official she was arrested and placed in custody.”
Carter even pointed the finger at the ‘wildly unpredictable’ Trump administration for the fiasco, amidst a continuing clampdown on migrants. He suggested ICE agents had overreacted to a simple question about finding work, which prosecutors have now construed as an attempt to abscond.
Her dad John, 59, said she had met the men, who claimed they were property developers, on an earlier trip to Portugal. They invited her to stay with them and then offered her a free holiday, but allegedly coerced her taking two suitcases home which she claims they had packed, and that she thought contained $250,000 in cash.
Kim, from Middlesbrough, said: “The two guys started to threaten me. They were annoyed because they thought I was trying to avoid taking the suitcases. One of them dragged me off the bed by my hair and held a handgun to my head. He said, ‘I’ll f***ing shoot you.’ It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. I was screaming at them to let me go. I thought, I’m going to end up dead if I don’t carry this money.”
John told The Sun: “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.”
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.”
Carter is pushing for Hall to be released from jail again and a hearing to decide whether she should stay behind bars has been set for May 16.