A BRIT grandad accused of smuggling meth into Chile is fighting for his life behind bars as desperate legal efforts are launched to bring him home.
William ‘Billy Boy’ Eastment was arrested on May 26 after he was caught trying to enter Chile with £200,000 of methamphetamines in his suitcase.
Now his health is deteriorating rapidly after he reportedly battled pneumonia while in custody.
The 80-year-old has suffered four separate episodes of the lung infection, in addition to a series of underlying health conditions, according to the Daily Mirror.
A source told the outlet Eastment is “very vulnerable”, and said being in prison is making “everything worse”.
“There’s real concern about how much longer he can cope”, they added.
His legal team are scrambling to negotiate a deal with prosecutors in a bid to cut his trial short.
The pensioner is currently locked up in the tough Santiago 1 Penitentiary.
In previous hard-hitting court submissions, his lawyers claimed staying in prison was a “real and imminent” risk to Eastment’s life.
He is suspected of being an international drug smuggler, but claims that he was scammed into carrying the suitcase by a mysterious stranger.
Eastment, a bowls and fishing enthusiast, alleged that a woman called Carolina approached him during a layover in Mexico.
He said he had been receiving emails he thought were from International Monetary Fund bigwigs.
Brits targeted for use as ‘drug mules’
BRITISH travellers are often targeted by drug smugglers looking for unsuspecting mules.
Bella Culley, 19, was arrested last year after Georgian cops found £200,000 worth of cannabis in her luggage.
The teenager, had fallen into the clutches of a Thai drug gang while backpacking.
Culley, who was pregnant at the time, spent five months locked up in Georgia.
She had expected to serve another 18 months in Tbilisi’s grim No 5 Women’s Penitentiary when she was released on “compassionate grounds”.
The IMF had warned of email frauds being carried out in its name, but Eastment’s lawyer said the keen angler “fell for the scam”.
He added that the OAP “does not live with anyone who could have warned him of the possible fraudulent nature of these emails”.
After travelling all the way from his home in Milborne Port, Somerset to Mexico City, Eastman says he was approached by a woman, who told him that he had won the lottery.
The pensioner claimed that “Carolina” had promised him £3.7 million to deliver the suitcase.
The mysterious woman had even given him a fake certificate alluding to the prize, police said.
Extradition is not on the table, dashing hopes he could have returned to the UK.
And officials have warned that the process could take years to arrange.
A source said: “Under Chilean law, that simply isn’t an option for drug offences.”
The OAP’s last bid to change his custody arrangements, backed by UK-based relatives, was initially approved on October 17, before being overturned.
Lawyers are now trying to strike a last-ditch deal that could see Eastment released from jail but only under strict conditions.
He would remain in the country under surveillance and would likely be subject to monitoring, under the proposal.
But because he entered Chile as a tourist, he is not eligible for the country’s health care.
This would leave Eastment facing mounting medical bills if he was released under this deal.
“The problem is he needs a family member to step forward and act as guarantor for his healthcare bills,” the source said.
Efforts are now underway to track down relatives willing to take on responsibility.
Eastment’s sister Jennifer, 78, described him as “gullible” after learning about his arrest.
She told the Daily Mirror: “If someone gave him a story like that about needing something delivered and he would get paid for it, he wouldn’t think about drugs or anything like that.
“You would not believe that someone so intelligent and top of the class growing up could be so stupid and have so little common sense.”
