Inside deadly US jail Brit beautician held for ‘smuggling £3.5m of cocaine’

A British beautician who allegedly tried to smuggle cocaine valued at 3.5million into the US is being held in a brutal Illinois jail.

Kim Hall, 28, was caught in the act at Chicago’s O’Hare airport where she was due to get on her connecting flight home to Manchester. Homeland Security investigators detained the Middlesbrough woman after discovering 43kg of cocaine packed in two suitcases.

She flew into the United States from Mexico where it is claimed that she received the cocaine. But Hall, being held at Cook County Jail in Illinois, said she thought she was carrying cash from a real estate deal.

Cooky County Jail is one of the largest prisons in the US and is known for its severity. There are thousands of inmates and nearly 3,000 law enforcement officers.

The prison is well known for having once held 1920s gangster Al Capone and serial killer John Wayne Gacy, better known as the Killer Clown.

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.”

The sheer volume of drugs seized means the 28-year-old finds herself facing one of the harshest sentences, with Class X Felonies typically carrying 15-60 years in prison.

But her mum Tracy, 58, reportedly said: “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 and now waiting for any other news and said the incident has been “horrendous” for the family.

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