parents trying to find out who their daughter’s child met while visiting Thailand
PUBLISHED: 17 May 2025 at 15: 49
A young American girl who had lost contact with her in Thailand has been detained in Georgia, 6, 500 kilometers away, on suspicion of smuggling tens of luggage of cannabis into the region.
At Tbilisi International Airport, according to Victorian police, officers found two kilograms of hashish and 12 kilograms of marijuana in a traveling bag belonging to Bella Culley, 18, at the airports.
The Victorian interior ministry announced that the young woman from county Durham in Billingham was facing life imprisonment, which is the minimum sentence of 20 years.
Before being transferred to an all-female pre-trial detention center in the area of Rustavi, Ms. Culley did not speak during an initial reading, her Greek lawyer claimed.
According to American media reports, the young Briton had not spoken to her mother since May 10 when she had allegedly messed up scheduling Facetime with her.
Her father, who resides in Vietnam, traveled to Bangkok next trip to investigate, only to realize that she had been detained in Georgia on Tuesday.
Ms. Kennedy claimed that her daughter, who planned to study care, had flown to the Philippines next month with a companion, and spent three weeks it.
She made the biggest selection of her existence on April 16 by posting a video on TikTok that appeared to show her in the Philippines.
She traveled to Thailand on May 3 to meet friends she had made on a prior trip that her mother was unaware of.
The 18-year-old had shared photos and videos from both of her visits, including those that included snorkeling, cave visits, and turtle encounters. Her most recent messages were posted on May 9, the day before she was reported missing.
” Wads of cash”
However, another TikTok and Instagram posts have appeared that purport to show her and her holding large amounts of cash and allegedly smoking marijuana while driving in the backseat of a car. These movies have not yet received any comments from officials.
According to The Sun paper, Ms. Culley changed her travel plans after some English men convinced her to visit Thailand.
However, a mystery surrounds the young woman’s apparent holding of a number of business directorships, at least two of which have Taiwanese ties.
She is even mentioned as the head of a company called Lujamen Limited, which is described as “agents specialized in the sale of another certain products,” according to The Sun.
Authorities in Britain reported last year that since Thailand decriminalized marijuana in 2022, seizures of marijuana smuggled from the country had increased tremendously.
They claimed drug traffickers were using talk programs to recruit people in Britain and offered free vacations in Thailand and pocket money in exchange for bringing cannabis back home.