Two drug mules caught attempting to smuggle £160,000 worth of cannabis into the UK are also OnlyFans models, MailOnline can reveal.
Sophie Bannister, 30 and Levi-April Whalley, 31 have posted a series of provocative pictures of themselves in an attempt to earn money from the online platform which has more than 200 million users around the world.
Both women received suspended sentences after being detained for bringing the drugs back to the UK from the US but before taking their arrest, they have been regularly posting on OnlyFans.
Bannister admitted to MailOnline: ‘I’ve not been posting on it recently because I’ve been busy with other things. Levi and I did it for a laugh and to help make ends meet.’
One picture shows the two women wearing cowboy hats with their naked rear ends exposed.
Bannister said: ‘Yes, that’s me and Levi…It was just a bit of fun.’
The women burst into tears when they were handed 18-month suspended sentences at Preston Crown Court last week.
And after walking free from court with suspended sentences they told the Daily Mail that while it might appear they escaped ‘scot-free’, their lives had been ‘ruined.’ They also blamed their downfall on being ‘groomed’ by international criminals.
Ex-nurse Whalley – who now faces being struck off – and Bannister, who was educated at boarding school continued to insist they thought the cases contained watches.
But they admit that they felt ‘panicky’ about what might really be inside as they flew home – saying they were in ‘far too deep to turn around’.
The pair were arrested on arrival at Birmingham International Airport following a three-day pre-Christmas shopping trip to New York in 2023 when the incriminating packages were found in their luggage.
The ‘true friends’ sobbed and held hands in the dock as a judge imposed suspended prison sentences after being told neither of them had been in trouble since then.
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.
A woman whom Bannister had met in Marbella contacted her over Instagram offering them £2,000 each to bring what they thought were watches and jewellery back from New York, they allege.
Whalley told MailOnline the offer was ‘you can go on holiday for free and go shopping, and then at the end of it you brought some suitcases back, but you didn’t have to think about it until the day that you actually came back’.
‘It’s something I’ve always wanted, to go to New York, since I was a little girl. I thought ‘Oh, let’s do it’, but not thinking about the actual consequences.’
As a result, they ‘very stupidly’ agreed.
Whalley – who has since had a baby – said they were told to ‘go and enjoy your holiday’ and that at the end of it they would have to bring the watches back with them.
However, after being handed her case and checking onto their flight to Birmingham via Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on December 9, 2023, Bannister said they felt ‘a bit anxious’.
‘I wasn’t 100 per cent what was in it to be honest,’ she said.
‘I just started to get a bit panicky.’
Whalley said it was only at the end of the break that ‘reality hit’ – but claimed they felt they had no choice but to smuggle the cases due to being ‘threatened’.
‘We had an absolutely amazing time in New York.
‘Then on the last day when we had to get these cases back it was like, ‘S***, what are we actually doing?’
‘But we felt like we were already in far too deep to turn around at that point.’
They were stopped by Customs officers after picking up the locked cases – for which they didn’t have keys – from the carousel at Birmingham airport.
‘He asked us if we’d packed our cases ourselves,’ said Bannister.
‘Levi said ‘Yes’ at first, but when he asked us to open it, we said ‘No.’
‘And then when he opened it, we found what was inside.’
Bannister’s case was packed with 34 heat sealed packages containing 16.5kg of cannabis with an estimated street value of £40,500, Preston Crown Court heard this week.
A further 39 packages containing 19kg of cannabis were in Whalley’s case worth an estimated £121,500.
Continuing to insist she had no idea of the contents, Bannister told the Mail she was ‘absolutely heartbroken and gobsmacked’.
‘We thought that’s it, our lives are over. ‘The friends spent more than 24 hours in police custody – during which time Bannister said she was hospitalised due to a severe panic attack – before being released on bail.
Both insist they were ‘groomed’ as a result of their social media profiles – and argue they were vulnerable to exploitation due to coming out of difficult relationships and – in Bannister’s case – debt.
Whalley told the Mail that at the time she had wanted to ‘escape myself’.
‘I thought ‘Yeah, why not’, not really thinking much about the consequences.’
Whalley believes traffickers target women like her on social media leading a ‘certain lifestyle’, sucking them in with the offer of a ‘free holiday’.
‘They approach the type of vulnerable people because even though they might have so many followers on Instagram they’re not as confident as they may seem.
‘They’ve obviously seen that we were travelling a lot.’
She insists that her reaction to the offer today as a mother-of-one would have been ‘absolutely not’.
‘So, it just it proves that that we had some vulnerability, that we took that risk and opportunity.’
Whalley lost her job as an adult nurse after informing her employer of her arrest.
She now faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council – she is currently under an interim suspension.
Whalley is now juggling running a beauty business with being a single mother.
Bannister – who attended £15,000-a-year Kirkham Grammar School – used to run a clothing brand in Dubai but is now living with friends in Manchester following her arrest.
‘It’s caused a lot of upset and hurt,’ she said.
‘My family all fell out with me. It’s not been easy.’
The pair have been bombarded with ‘harsh’ messages about their crimes since their sentencing this week.
‘We’re being treated as if we’ve murdered someone,’ said Whalley, whose mother died last week.
‘It’s disgusting, I’ve got a baby here and I’m being trolled.
‘What I really don’t like is people saying I’ve had a baby to avoid me going to jail. That simply wasn’t the case.
‘I’m ashamed for my family, I’ve got to live with that for the rest of my life.
‘But the things that people are saying, that doesn’t go away either. We’ve made a mistake and we’re really sorry for that.
‘And you’re paying for it, not just in the terms of the suspended sentence.
‘Everything is different now and I do I look back and I think I wish I didn’t do that.
‘At the end of the day we chose that path and we’ve got to pay the price.’
‘We’ve both said we’re ashamed,’ Bannister added.
‘I wish we’d made better decisions, to be honest.’
Both women pleaded guilty to fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class B drug.
Last Wednesday at Preston Crown Court Judge 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 20 months suspended for 18 months with 30 days rehabilitation activities and 200 hours of unpaid work.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
