William ‘Billy Boy’ Eastment was intercepted at Santiago Airport allegedly with £200,000 worth of meth and his neighbours in in Milborne Port, Somerset, are shocked by the accusations
Neighbours of the pensioner accused by Chilean authorities of being an international drug smuggler say they were ‘gobsmacked’ by his alleged second life. William ‘Billy Boy’ Eastment faces dying behind prison bars if found guilty after the 79-year-old was intercepted at Santiago Airport allegedly with £200,000 worth of the class A drug after arriving on a flight from Cancun, Mexico, on May 18.
The arrest on suspicion that he is an international drug trafficker is a world away from the quiet, bowl-playing OAP his neighbours know in Milborne Port, Somerset. So too is his semi-detached housing association bungalow on a quiet cul-de-sac, which he has now swapped for a notorious South American prison cell.
One neighbour recalled seeing the pensioner just days before his arrest. “If you’re looking for Bill, he’s not there,” he said. “I saw him two weekends ago, and he said he was going away. He mentioned Mexico, which I think he said he was thinking of moving to. He said he had missed his flight, so he was going to have to get a later one. A mate was going to pick him up to take him to the airport, and that was the end of the discussion.”
The neighbour said he hadn’t seen Eastment since. “I don’t know what day he left, but he must have gone in the week. I know he loves his bowls, and he fishes a bit too. What on Earth is someone like that doing mixed up in drugs? He certainly hasn’t got a lot of money as far as you can tell. He’s just a simple pensioner, I thought, and he’s hardly living the high life here.”
Chilean police say Eastment is now behind bars in Santiago 1 Penitentiary, where he awaits trial. The pensioner lives in a humble set of bungalows, which are provided for the elderly and offer social activities such as coffee mornings and Tai Chi. The arrest has shocked those who know him for his love of crown greens and fondness for fishing.
The retired heavy goods and bus fitter is now at the centre of an international drug trafficking investigation involving law enforcement in Chile, Mexico, the US, Brazil and the UK. However, his ex-partner claims she knew a darker side to the ageing pensioner. “He was always shouting and swearing at me,” she said. She said she hasn’t spoken to Eastment since 2017.
The former partner added: “People around here won’t know him very well because they knew he was trouble. He had a hell of a temper and was always falling out with people. So neighbours would nod and say hello, but otherwise didn’t get involved.”
But police in Chile say they believe the frail OAP was acting as a drug mule on behalf of a criminal gang, lured into transporting a suitcase stuffed with methamphetamine under the promise of an enormous cash prize. Sergio Paredes, head of the Anti-Narcotics Division of the Chilean PDI police at Arturo Merino Benitez Airport, revealed Eastment had told officers he had been promised a staggering $5 million (£3.7 million) in exchange for delivering the case.
“The elderly British man we arrested claimed he had no idea his suitcase contained drugs when he was intercepted after picking it up from the luggage carousel and trying to enter our country with it,” said Mr Paredes.
“We interviewed him in English because he didn’t speak a word of Spanish and he alleged he had been deceived. He said he had received the suitcase from some Mexicans at the airport in Cancun before he boarded his flight and he claimed he had been promised a prize of $5 million for delivering the suitcase to its final destination.
“He was even carrying a rudimentary certificate alluding to the prize. He told us he was going to spend the night in Santiago and fly to Australia the next day, but he didn’t have a hotel or flight booking. Apart from the two or three bits of information he offered us about the supposed prize money and his accommodation and travel plans, he didn’t say much.
“We believe he was a drug mule in the pay of a criminal gang and he’s now in prison on remand while we work on gathering evidence against him and the criminal organisation that sent him ahead of probable charges and a trial.”
Eastment’s mobile phone is now being examined by investigators, who believe he may have had contact with suspected traffickers in Brazil and the United States. “We’ve got court authorisation to look at his mobile and we’ll be working with police forces in those countries and the UK through our liaison officers to try to help build up a watertight case against this gentleman and identify the people we believe sent him to Chile,” said Mr Paredes.
Sources say Eastment is being held away from hardened criminals and is instead housed with other remand prisoners, many of whom are accused of non-violent crimes. A judge has ruled that he can be held for up to 120 days, giving Chilean authorities nearly four months to gather evidence and formally charge him.
While Eastment could face up to 15 years in jail if convicted, legal sources in Chile say a sentence closer to five years is more likely, particularly if he cooperates with prosecutors as part of a plea deal. Mr Paredes said the use of an elderly suspect was unusual, but not unprecedented.
He said: “This case has its peculiarities – a frail-looking, elderly person being caught with a large amount of methamphetamine who had recently been operated on and still had scars from that medical intervention and looked like a typical grandad if I’m going to be honest.
“But we’ve seen everything here at this airport, and we know the criminal gangs are increasingly using mules they think will be less likely to attract attention. We’ve caught people in wheelchairs trying to leave Chile through this airport with drugs attached to their bodies. I always say anyone could be a potential drug smuggler. That’s the philosophy we work off here.”
He added that the suitcase was packed to capacity. “The false bottom in the British pensioner’s suitcase, where the drugs had been hidden, was filled full. It couldn’t have held any more methamphetamine. We believe he was going to receive further instructions on what to do with the suitcase and the drugs once he got through immigration and left the airport.
“What we have gathered so far is information pointing to him being directed from Brazil and the United States because off his own back he showed us his mobile with conversations with prefixes from those countries. We are already talking to colleagues in the UK about this man and the ongoing investigation here. International police cooperation is always very important in cases like these, and that’s why we’ll be talking also to the Drug Enforcement Administration in the United States as well.”
Rodrigo Diaz, a Chilean customs official, said Eastment’s luggage was flagged during routine scanning procedures. “We check every piece of luggage checked in with an X-ray scanner and we also use specialist sniffer dogs and specialists who look for certain types of suspicious behaviour from travellers,” he said.
“The scanner picked up something suspicious before this British OAP’s luggage reached the carousel. We’d marked the suitcase using a technology that meant lights flashed when he came through an arch in the customs filter on his way out of the airport, and then proceeded to check it in the pensioner’s presence.
Initially, nothing was discovered after he took his clothes and other belongings from the suitcase. But the packets containing the amphetamine were found once a secret compartment in the case was broken open, which was what the X-Ray scanner had detected as suspicious.”
Eastment’s arrest is the latest in a series of similar recent apprehensions around the world involving British nationals, although most have been far younger than the man held in Chile.
Last week, it emerged that a British couple aged 33 and 34 had been held at Valencia airport after police allegedly discovered 33 kilos of cannabis in their luggage. The pair claimed they were tourists coming from Thailand after they were intercepted as they got off a flight from France.
A 23-year-old British woman in Ghana was arrested two weeks ago after being accused of attempting to bring up to 18kg of cannabis into the UK on a May 18 British Airways flight to Gatwick.
Bella May Culley, 18, sparked a massive international search operation in early May after she was reported missing while she was believed to be holidaying in Thailand. However, it was later revealed that the teen, from Billingham, County Durham, had been arrested 4,000 miles away on drug offences in Georgia, allegedly carrying 30 pounds (14kg) of cannabis into the ex-Soviet nation.
More recently, 21-year-old Charlotte Lee May, from Coulsdon, south London, was arrested in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, after police discovered 46 kg of ‘Kush’ – a synthetic strain of cannabis – in her suitcase. The former flight attendant, facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted, is claiming she had ‘no idea’ about the drugs worth up to £1.2 million and insisting they must have been planted in her luggage without her knowledge.