A mum has spoken out for the first time as her beautician daughter is facing up to 60 years behind bars in the US for allegedly smuggling cocaine worth £3.5m into the country.
Kim Hall, from Middlesbrough, has been accused of collecting two suitcases filled with 43kg of cocaine while in Mexico and taking them to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, where she was arrested by Homeland Security, who believe she intentionally tried to smuggle the drugs.
The 28-year-old claims she believed she had been carrying cash from real estate deals and did not know the true content of what was inside the cases. Hall is now being held inside Cook County Jail in Illinois.
The slammer, which is one of the largest jails in the US, housing thousands of inmates, once held 1920s gangster Al Capone and serial killer John Wayne Gacy, better known as the Killer Clown, reports the Mirror.
The distraught 58-year-old told the MailOnline: “The truth will come out, we are certain that Kim will be able to tell the real story in time.”
She and Hall’s sister Stephanie are now waiting for any other news and said the incident has been “horrendous” for the family.
Hall’s friends have shared their fears about her safety in the prison where 18 people died in 2023, according to US outlet Injustice Watch. The total is the highest reported number of deaths at the facility since 2013.
A family friend told MailOnline: “Everyone is beside themselves with worry over Kim’s safety in that prison. The thought of that sweet, shy, timid girl locked up in a place like that is unbearable. No one could believe it when word got out that Kim had been arrested on drugs charges, you couldn’t have picked a person less likely to be involved in something like that.
“She’s a lovely hard working girl with her own business who has never been in trouble with the law in her life. After she left school she went to work in bars in Salou for a while and although she enjoyed it she really missed her family.
“She worships her mum and dad and is very close to them. She likes to be close to home and I can’t imagine what she must be going through now, stuck so far away at the other side of the world.”
According to the US Customs and Border Protection, thousands of kilos of cocaine are smuggled into the country every year. Drug enforcement officers made busts preventing 442,706kg and 318,875kg of cocaine in 2021 and 2022. In 2023 and 2024, 367,409kg and 285,763kg were prevented from entering the US, respectively.
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