Two drug mules caught making an attempt to smuggle £160,000 value of hashish into the UK are additionally OnlyFans fashions, MailOnline can reveal.
Sophie Bannister, 30 and Levi-April Whalley, 31 have posted a sequence of provocative footage of themselves in an try to earn cash from the web platform which has greater than 200 million customers all over the world.
Each girls acquired suspended sentences after being detained for bringing the medication again to the UK from the US however earlier than taking their arrest, they’ve been usually posting on OnlyFans.
Bannister admitted to MailOnline: ‘I’ve not been posting on it lately as a result of I have been busy with different issues. Levi and I did it for fun and to assist make ends meet.’
One image exhibits the 2 girls sporting cowboy hats with their bare rear ends uncovered.
Bannister stated: ‘Sure, that is me and Levi…It was only a little bit of enjoyable.’
The ladies burst into tears once they had been handed 18-month suspended sentences at Preston Crown Courtroom final week.
And after strolling free from courtroom with suspended sentences they instructed the Every day Mail that whereas it would seem they escaped ‘scot-free’, their lives had been ‘ruined.’ Additionally they blamed their downfall on being ‘groomed’ by worldwide criminals.
Sophie Bannister, 30 and Levi-April Whalley, 31 have posted a sequence of provocative footage of themselves in an try to earn cash from OnlyFans. One image exhibits the 2 girls sporting cowboy hats with their bare rear ends uncovered
The pair have posted a sequence of near-nude photographs of themselves to earn cash
The ladies burst into tears once they had been handed 18-month suspended sentences at Preston Crown Courtroom final week
Ex-nurse Whalley – who now faces being struck off – and Bannister, who was educated at boarding faculty continued to insist they thought the instances contained watches.
However they admit that they felt ‘panicky’ about what may actually be inside as they flew residence – saying they had been in ‘far too deep to show round’.
The pair had been arrested on arrival at Birmingham Worldwide Airport following a three-day pre-Christmas buying journey to New York in 2023 when the incriminating packages had been discovered of their baggage.
The ‘true mates’ sobbed and held fingers within the dock as a decide imposed suspended jail sentences after being instructed neither of them had been in hassle since then.
The pair – each initially from Blackburn, Lancashire – have practically 60,000 followers on Instagram, and till their arrest usually posted about having fun with seashore holidays all over the world.
A girl whom Bannister had met in Marbella contacted her over Instagram providing them £2,000 every to deliver what they thought had been watches and jewelry again from New York, they allege.
Whalley instructed MailOnline the supply was ‘you possibly can go on vacation totally free and buy groceries, after which on the finish of it you introduced some suitcases again, however you did not have to consider it till the day that you simply really got here again’.
‘It is one thing I’ve at all times wished, to go to New York, since I used to be a bit woman. I believed ‘Oh, let’s do it’, however not fascinated with the precise penalties.’
In consequence, they ‘very stupidly’ agreed.
Bannister’s case was full of 34 warmth sealed packages containing 16.5kg of hashish with an estimated road worth of £40,500, Preston Crown Courtroom heard this week
Persevering with to insist she had no concept of the contents, Bannister instructed the Mail she was ‘completely heartbroken and gobsmacked’
Sophie Bannister (pictured in New York) and Levi-April Whalley, each 30, from Blackburn, had been snared with 35kg of the Class B drug of their baggage
Whalley – who has since had a child – stated they had been instructed to ‘go and revel in your vacation’ and that on the finish of it they must deliver the watches again with them.
Nonetheless, after being handed her case and checking onto their flight to Birmingham through Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on December 9, 2023, Bannister stated they felt ‘a bit anxious’.
‘I wasn’t 100 per cent what was in it to be trustworthy,’ she stated.
‘I simply began to get a bit panicky.’
Whalley stated it was solely on the finish of the break that ‘actuality hit’ – however claimed they felt they’d no selection however to smuggle the instances resulting from being ‘threatened’.
‘We had a completely wonderful time in New York.
‘Then on the final day once we needed to get these instances again it was like, ‘S***, what are we really doing?’
‘However we felt like we had been already in far too deep to show round at that time.’
They had been stopped by Customs officers after selecting up the locked instances – for which they did not have keys – from the carousel at Birmingham airport.
‘He requested us if we would packed our instances ourselves,’ stated Bannister.
‘Levi stated ‘Sure’ at first, however when he requested us to open it, we stated ‘No.’
‘After which when he opened it, we discovered what was inside.’
Bannister’s case was full of 34 warmth sealed packages containing 16.5kg of hashish with an estimated road worth of £40,500, Preston Crown Courtroom heard this week.
An extra 39 packages containing 19kg of hashish had been in Whalley’s case value an estimated £121,500.
Persevering with to insist she had no concept of the contents, Bannister instructed the Mail she was ‘completely heartbroken and gobsmacked’.
‘We thought that is it, our lives are over. ‘The chums spent greater than 24 hours in police custody – throughout which era Bannister stated she was hospitalised resulting from a extreme panic assault – earlier than being launched on bail.
Each insist they had been ‘groomed’ on account of their social media profiles – and argue they had been weak to exploitation resulting from popping out of inauspicious relationships and – in Bannister’s case – debt.
Ex-nurse Whalley – who now faces being struck off – and Bannister, who was educated at boarding faculty continued to insist they thought the instances contained watches
Sophie Bannister (pictured) and Levi-April Whalley, each 30 from Blackburn, instructed border officers they’d been on a three-day buying spree within the Large Apple
Whalley instructed the Mail that on the time she had wished to ‘escape myself’.
‘I believed ‘Yeah, why not’, not likely pondering a lot in regards to the penalties.’
Whalley believes traffickers goal girls like her on social media main a ‘sure life-style’, sucking them in with the supply of a ‘free vacation’.
‘They method the kind of weak individuals as a result of regardless that they may have so many followers on Instagram they are not as assured as they could appear.
‘They’ve clearly seen that we had been travelling lots.’
She insists that her response to the supply right now as a mother-of-one would have been ‘completely not’.
‘So, it simply it proves that that we had some vulnerability, that we took that threat and alternative.’
Whalley misplaced her job as an grownup nurse after informing her employer of her arrest.
She now faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council – she is at the moment beneath an interim suspension.
Whalley is now juggling working a magnificence enterprise with being a single mom.
Bannister – who attended £15,000-a-year Kirkham Grammar Faculty – used to run a clothes model in Dubai however is now dwelling with mates in Manchester following her arrest.
‘It is brought on plenty of upset and damage,’ she stated.
‘My household all fell out with me. It isn’t been straightforward.’
Whalley believes traffickers goal girls like her on social media main a ‘sure life-style’, sucking them in with the supply of a ‘free vacation’
Whalley is pictured on a seashore in Thailand in one in every of her social media snaps
The pair have been bombarded with ‘harsh’ messages about their crimes since their sentencing this week.
‘We’re being handled as if we have murdered somebody,’ stated Whalley, whose mom died final week.
‘It is disgusting, I’ve received a child right here and I am being trolled.
‘What I actually don’t love is individuals saying I’ve had a child to keep away from me going to jail. That merely wasn’t the case.
‘I am ashamed for my household, I’ve received to reside with that for the remainder of my life.
‘However the issues that individuals are saying, that does not go away both. We have made a mistake and we’re actually sorry for that.
‘And also you’re paying for it, not simply within the phrases of the suspended sentence.
‘The whole lot is totally different now and I do I look again and I believe I want I did not do this.
‘On the finish of the day we selected that path and we have got to pay the value.’
‘We have each stated we’re ashamed,’ Bannister added.
‘I want we would made higher selections, to be trustworthy.’
Each girls pleaded responsible to fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a category B drug.
Final Wednesday at Preston Crown Courtroom Decide Richard Archer gave Whalley a 16-month sentence suspended for 18 months, with 10 days rehabilitation and 80 hours of unpaid work.
Bannister was sentenced to twenty months suspended for 18 months with 30 days rehabilitation actions and 200 hours of unpaid work.
