Beauty therapist who lived party girl lifestyle on yachts in the Med is caught with £1.5m of cocaine
A BEAUTY therapist who lived a play-girl lifestyle partying on yachts in the Med has been jailed after she was caught with £1.5million of cocaine.
Porsche-driving Stephanie Nelson, 30, ran a local cosmetics firm but paid for regular holidays on a £1.4million sunseeker, moored in the south of France.
She was stopped in the Dartford tunnel by cops who found packs of 83 per cent purity cocaine labelled “Premium 20/20” in a secret compartment in her car.
A court heard the 15kg class A haul was inside a “sophisticated and magnetised” void in her boot in two black holdalls.
Maidstone crown court heard Nelson drove 250miles from her home in Wilmslow, Manchester, to a pub in Bearsted, near Maidstone, Kent.
Surveillance cops watched her collect two bags from John Markham, 53, before turning immediately to make the journey home.
Tom Nicholson, prosecuting, said when officers initially searched the boot it appeared empty, on June 10.
They then discovered the smuggling compartment, which became magnetised when the engine was switched on and the glove compartment opened.
Cops also found the beautician with a BQ Aquaris encrypted phone described as “highly sophisticated and virtually impossible” to crack.
The court was told last Wednesday Nelson’s Hyundai had been seen driving to Folkestone and waiting in a car park on several occasions leading up to her arrest.
There were rumours that she was a glamour girl – she’s stunning so it wouldn’t have surprised us. But I can’t believe what she’s actually been up to.”
Source close to Burke
A source close to Stephanie told The Sun last night: “We always did think she lived a very glamorous life for a beautician.
“It’s a good job but she spends a lot of money. She’s a big shopper always ordering a lot of stuff to her home.
“There were rumours that she was a glamour girl – she’s stunning so it wouldn’t have surprised us.
“But I can’t believe what she’s actually been up to.”
Stephanie rents a £2,400-a-month luxury property in upmarket Wilmslow, Gtr Manchester, and neighbours say she drove a plush white 4×4.
One said Stephanie “keeps herself to herself”.
Jailing her, Judge Philip Statman blasted Nelson for the ‘a deliberate course of conduct for financial gain’.
The judge said: “Individuals such as you need to perform the critical role in ensuring the safe passage of drugs from the coast, through county lines and to the northern part of England.
“Individuals such as you must be highly trusted because the value of this load was vast.
“Cocaine is a highly addictive and pernicious drug. It brings with it misery and degradation to its users.”
Christopher Martin, mitigating, said former trainee nurse Nelson was from a ‘good, law-abiding’ family and now engaged to be married.
He said she had agreed to be a mule under pressure from a controlling ex.
He said: “She was given a postcode and went and collected the bags. She didn’t look inside and didn’t know what they contained.”
Instagram reveals Nelson’s son sitting in the driver’s seat of a Porsche while the dealer herself enjoyed dozens of glamorous holidays to the Far East and Mideterranean.
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The court heard Nelson, who is five-months pregnant, was mum to a boy, seven, who will now be looked after by his gran.
Nelson, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, admitted to conspiracy to supply cocaine and was jailed for 10 years.
Markham, of Enfield, Middlesex, admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and was jailed for 10 years.
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