A NETFLIX series featuring former cocaine mule Michaella McCollum has been branded “absolutely disgusting” by a woman working on the front line of drug addiction.
Tracy Bell said her battles against the scourge of addiction include having helped the one-time jailbird’s ex-boyfriend, Dwayne Mullan.
She told us that the idea of Michaella making money as a result of her attempted smuggling adventure is “just shameful”.
Michaella, from Co Tyrone, hit the headlines nine years ago when she and Scottish pal Melissa Reid were nabbed boarding a flight at Peru’s Jorge Chávez International Airport.
Dubbed the Peru Two, the pair had €1.6million worth of cocaine stashed in their luggage.
Ex-dancer McCollum, from Dungannon, was banged up for a six-year stretch in the hellhole Ancon 2 prison. Yet she and her pal were freed on parole after just over two years and allowed to jet home.
At the weekend mum-of-two Michaella, 29, glammed up to celebrate landing the Netflix deal.
She posed in front of a cake branded with Netflix’s logo and said: “F***ing celebration cake! Netflix worldwide weekend.”
Her docu-series High: Confessions of an Ibiza Drug Mule — which aired on the BBC last year had just been released globally.
The story has ranked in the top ten in nine countries.
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The death more than 20 years ago of Tracy Bell’s 31-year-old brother Gary was the first recorded heroin-linked fatality in Northern Ireland.
She said: “I just can’t see how it’s right to glamorize all of this.
“You can be a drug mule, sell your story and be on TV and profit and have a nice lifestyle.
“This is a terrible thing for a lot of families who have buried loved ones. It just can’t be too pleasant for them when they’re sitting at a teenage child’s grave.”
'SHE WASN'T IN GOOD COMPANY'
The Antrim woman, who has fought to help people with addictions for more than two decades, said she knew of a former drug dealer who claimed to have partied with Michaella years before her arrest.
She said Kenny Smyth, who took his own life in 2017, had talked online of knowing Michaella after her story hit the headlines.
In 2013 Michaella had agreed to traffic the drugs for a payment from crooks in Ibiza, Spain.
Tracy said: “She wasn’t in good company for a long time.”
'GLAMORIZING IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING'
The addiction counsellor told of working with Co Tyrone man Dwayne Mullan who, in 2019, featured in a BBC documentary about being hooked on heroin.
Mullan, who dated Michaella before she left Northern Ireland, had previously been jailed for ten months after cops found 15 wraps of heroin hidden in his mouth.
Tracy said: “Michaella has been surrounded by drugs and it has all worked out for her. I just find this all very difficult for people who know what this is really all about. Glamorizing all this is absolutely disgusting. Absolutely disgusting!”
Yet some of Michaella’s 84,000 social media followers see it differently, with one saying her documentary was a “super important message”.
'LOVED YOUR STORY'
They said: “You are a strong woman overcoming all those challenges and facing the consequences of your mistakes! Enjoy a beautiful life now.”
One more wrote: “Only God could judge you! Loved your story!”
Another said: “Turning adversity into advantage = respect. My child watched your Netflix series with me and it opened up a conversation that is difficult but necessary.
"Thank you for the opportunity given to learn from mistakes when young.”
BIGGEST REGRETS
Michaella has said how one of her biggest regrets was sniffing lines of coke and ketamine off a McDonald’s table at breakfast before her ill-fated drug trafficking trip.
She said she was high when she agreed to be a smuggler, but believed she only had to go on a trip from Ibiza to Barcelona.
Instead of a short hop to Barcelona, Michaella ended up on a long-haul flight to South America, where she was arrested at Jorge Chávez International airport at Callao in Peru.
Michaella penned a book on her time in prison, titled You’ll Never See Daylight Again. It’s not clear if she will make more money from the Netflix documentary as it was made for the BBC.
The Netflix doco is not available in Ireland.
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