Ancil
A British teenager was arrested in a foreign country, some 4,000 miles away, after going missing in Thailand.
Yesterday, May 13, Bella May Culley’s family revealed that they hadn’t heard from the 18-year-old for four days. The teenager from Billingham, County Durham, is said to have traveled to Thailand around May 3rd after initially taking a plane to the Philippines shortly after Easter.
Her relatives reportedly flew out to look for her after she was last seen in the Pattaya area of the Southeast Asian nation, where she had been posting on social media before reportedly becoming unreachable.
However, an update from Cleveland Police in the afternoon stated that an 18-year-old woman from Billingham had been arrested in Georgia on suspicion of dr*g offenses, after her mother’s morning statement to the media.
An update from the force read: “Update on Billingham woman who was reported missing overseas.
“We have this afternoon had confirmation from the authorities in Georgia that an 18-year-old woman from Billingham has been arrested there on suspicion of dr*gs offences and that she remains in their custody.”
How and why Bella traveled from Thailand to Georgia, Eastern Europe, is unknown.
Local media reports she was allegedly found with ’34 hermetically sealed packages containing marij*na’ in her bag ‘as well as 20 packages of hshish’.
This kind of accusation is said to carry a sentence of up to 20 years of life imprisonment in the country’s only female prison, Tbilisi Prison No.5.
Bella was scheduled to talk to her mother on Saturday and was in regular communication with her. Her phone is believed to be off, though, as her family has not heard from her since.
Neil Culley, the teen’s father, and Kerrie Culley, her aunt, had taken a plane to Thailand to investigate her abduction.
Before this update from police, Bella’s mum, Lyanne Kennedy told Teeside Live yesterday morning: “She was posting loads of pictures and then she went to Thailand on about May 3.
“The last message she sent was to me and that was on Saturday at 5.30pm saying she was going to Facetime me later. That was the last message anyone has received from what we can figure out up to now.”
Kennedy added that she just wanted ‘her home and safe or to hear her gorgeous little voice’.
