A British woman caught smuggling £15million of cocaine into America has avoided a 60-year jail term and will be home in two years after agreeing to a plea deal.
Kim Hall, 29, was arrested at Chicago‘s O’Hare International Airport last summer when customs officers discovered 43 kilos of the Class A drug stuffed into two suitcases.
The Middlesbrough woman was initially facing a sentence that could have kept her behind bars for most of her life after being charged with possession with intent to distribute.
But a court in Illinois has now sentenced her to six years in jail after she admitted the offence, a punishment that will be cut in half under US federal rules.
With the year she has already served on remand included, Hall is expected to return home in around 24 months.
Her family expressed their joy at the outcome. Her father, John, 60, who works as a scaffolder, said: ‘We are over the moon.
‘We feel we are the luckiest people on the planet – it’s better than winning any lottery. She is not a criminal and never has been.
‘We are still a bit concerned as to which prison she is going to serve her sentence in but regardless of that at least she only has to endure two years now and not 60.
Kim Hall was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport last summer when customs officers discovered 43 kilos of the Class A drug stuffed into two suitcases
A court in Illinois has now sentenced her to six years in jail after she admitted the offence, a punishment that will be cut in half under US federal rules
‘It’s a huge relief for the whole family,’ he told The Sun.
He added: ‘Her release is two years away but we can start planning – I don’t mean any sort of big party but planning to get her life back on track and that will take some time because of everything she has suffered.’
Hall previously claimed she was coerced into transporting the drugs after a holiday in Cancun, Mexico.
She alleged to The Sun last year that two British men forced her into carrying the suitcases.
She said: ‘One of them dragged me off the bed by my hair and held a handgun to my head.
‘He said: ‘I’ll f***ing shoot you.’ It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.’
On August 18, 2024, she landed at O’Hare to change flights on her way back to London. Homeland Security officers stopped her for what was described as a random inspection, only to uncover the vast haul of cocaine hidden in her luggage.
Hall insists she did not know what was inside the bags. She said: ‘There’s no way that I would knowingly transport drugs. I’m not a drug trafficker.
‘When the full realisation of what it all meant hit me I cried and cried, I was pleading with them to let me call my mum and dad.
Hall previously claimed she was coerced into transporting the drugs after a holiday in Cancun, Mexico
Hall’s father has insisted that she has never been a criminal
Prosecutors say she was caught at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport
‘I was hysterical and could hardly breathe. I was in a daze, thinking, is this really happening to me?
‘There’s no way that I would knowingly transport drugs in any way, shape or form.’
Her lawyer, Brandon Carter, said: ‘She’s not a citizen of the United States, let alone a local of Chicago, so we have no business really in keeping her here.’
She will now spend the next two years in the American prison system before being deported.
In May, it was alleged that Hall attempted to trick immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers into deporting her so she could evade justice.
A the time, she is said to have presented herself to authorities in February after she was out with an electronic monitoring tag.
The alleged plot did not work, and a judge revoked her electronic monitoring and sent her back to jail.
