A former Miss England contestant is facing 20 years in a Mexican jail for allegedly trying to smuggle £250,000 worth of ketamine into the country.
Jennifer Young, 33, was arrested at Cancun airport and accused of drug trafficking after arriving on a flight from Amsterdam in August last year. The model allegedly had more than 13kg of the drug in packets and bottles hidden beneath a false bottom in her suitcase.
Young was held in an overcrowded jail in the city before being transferred to a prison close to Mexico City in February, her mother said. Drug smuggling is considered one of the most serious crimes in Mexico and can carry a sentence of up to 20 years.
Her family were unaware of her detention for six months, as Young had told her mother, Angela, that she was simply travelling around the country. They learned the truth five weeks ago and Angela said she was “still in shock”.
“I’ve only just found out Jenny is in prison,” she told the Daily Mail. “My birthday is in March and wherever in the world Jenny is she calls me. But she didn’t get in touch and I started to worry.
“Then I got a message from her friend. I asked him where she was. After a lot of messages, he finally told me that she was in jail. I couldn’t believe it.
“Then I found out the whole story. That she had been in jail in Cancun for months. It was horribly overcrowded. I don’t know how many people were in her cell, but it was terrible.”
Young’s mother said that she was “still in shock” after hearing the news five weeks ago
“She could get a 20-year sentence. I’m so worried,” she added.
Young was born in Germany to a British mother and German father. Aged 17, she represented her home town of Derby in the 2007 Miss England pageant. After leaving the city two years later, she spent much of her life working abroad as a model and a tour guide.
Her biography on a Berlin city tours website had 15 five-star reviews, some of which described her as “cheerful”, “polite” and “personable”.
Young has been visited by the British consul and is expected to meet a lawyer to discuss her trial, her mother said.
“She is fine now she has a cell to herself. It’s much better than the other place,” she said. “Prisoners are allowed to have visits from family members. Relatives bring in food and other things. Jenny says she gets three meals a day but they are very small portions.
“I’m still coming to terms with what happened. I find sleeping difficult, but it’s not about me. It’s about how Jenny is going to get through all this.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are providing assistance to a British woman detained in Mexico and her family. We are in touch with the local authorities on this case.”
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