A glamorous drug mule spared jail after being caught attempting to smuggle over 35kg of cannabis into the UK hopes to visit schools so she can urge children not to make the same mistake she did.
Shamed ex-nurse Levi-April Whalley, now 31, and close friend Sophie Bannister, 30, have admitted making a ‘stupid’ decision – but blamed their downfall on being ‘groomed’ by international criminals.
Since unsuccessfully trying to bring the drugs – worth around £160,000 – hidden inside two suitcases on a flight from New York to Birmingham in December 2023, Whalley has given birth to a baby, a daughter now aged five months.
After both were given suspended prison sentences, she said becoming a mother had made her realise why drug smuggling has to carry such heavy penalties – a maximum of 14 years’ imprisonment in the case of cannabis.
The pair – both originally from Blackburn, Lancashire – have nearly 60,000 followers on Instagram, and until their arrest regularly posted about enjoying beach holidays around the world.
They claim that a woman Bannister had met in Marbella offered them a free holiday in New York in return for bringing back what they thought were watches and jewellery.
The pair were among 134 suspects arrested for smuggling a total of 5,609kg of cannabis into UK airports in 2023.
Last year a staggering 26,924kg was seized from around 750 smugglers flying into UK airports – a five-fold increase on the year before.
Saying she now bitterly regrets accepting the offer, Whalley said: ‘I’d love to be able to speak to people now and go in schools and try to change and people.
‘I’d really like to open people’s eyes up and say always think twice about every opportunity that’s offered to you, because it’s not always the route that you should go down.
‘You’ve got to think about the whole of the consequences, not just one angle of things.
‘You’ve not got to just go in and think “Oh yeah, it’s a free holiday, let’s go and do this”.’
Whalley – who faces being struck off the nursing register and has retrained offering beauty treatments – said her baby daughter was her ‘biggest blessing’.
‘I didn’t realize how much children do change you,’ she added.
‘I want the best for my daughter.’
Asked if that had brought it home to her why drug smuggling can carry such strong punishments, she said: ‘Yes of course it does.’
Saying she wanted to share her message of the perils of being ‘grooming’ into becoming a drugs mule, Whalley said: ‘It worries me for my own daughter, exploitation.
‘I wouldn’t want her to be exploited. I want her to choose the right actions in the future.
‘It’s always “Do you want to go on holiday?!
‘Don’t be sucked into this type of false reality. We just got sucked into it.’
Shamed ex-nurse Levi-April Whalley, 31, from Blackburn, Lancashire, said she would like to ‘open people’s eyes’ to the risks of drug smuggling, after she was arrested in 2023. Read More
