A British male model who flaunted his opulent lifestyle on social media has been imprisoned in Peru for nearly seven years after being discovered attempting to flee the country with £300,000 in cocaine.
Modou Adams, a Londoner, impressed his thousands of social media followers with his trendsetting appearance and opulent lifestyle under the self-styled pseudonym ‘boywholives’ in a display of excess described by authorities as a front for his criminal operations.
He has since admitted to being a drug trafficker and now faces six years and eight months in a South American hellhole.
Modou Adams, 25, was detained at Lima’s international airport while attempting to check in for a journey to London via Paris while carrying nearly three kilograms of cocaine in his suitcase.
He was sentenced in a 24-hour trial by the same police unit that held Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid, the so-called Peru Two, in August 2013.
Modou, a former marketing and public relations intern identified online as a ‘seasoned’ model, made his second tragic journey to the South American country extremely public on TikTok and Instagram.
He took selfies on the trip to the Andes Mountains Incan citadel Machu Picchu, masquerading as a tourist in Cuco, a favorite cocaine pick-up for drug mules and the city McCollum and Reid visited before their arrests.
Peru’s Supreme Court confirmed the punishment in a statement, referring to the Brit as Modou Dodou Adams and describing him as a Tiktoker.
‘Tiktoker Modou Dodou Adams, 25, has been jailed for six years and eight months for having co-ordinated the dispatch of nearly three kilos of cocaine to London,’ said the court in Lima’s Callao district, which specializes in punishing crimes where offenders are arrested while committing an offence or immediately afterwards.
‘The punishment was handed down in less than 24 hours after the accused guy admitted to the offense for which he was charged.’
He was arrested on September 30, although confirmation of his detention did not come until the next day.
Adams had returned to Peru 11 days earlier after a first trip in February, documenting his trip to Cuzco before returning to Lima and checking into a hotel in the affluent Miraflores neighborhood along the Pacific Ocean shore.
CCTV footage obtained outside his hotel showed him wearing shorts and a black hoodie and taking a suitcase inside the premises, which was later seized by authorities as he attempted to fly back to Europe.
The dramatic moment he was apprehended by two anti-drug squad cops as he checked in for his journey was also seen by Jorge Chavez International Airport cameras.
As Adams looked on, one of the policemen used a knife to cut through a false bottom of the bag where the cocaine was discovered and held it up.
The officers then conducted a body search on him.
‘It wasn’t the first time this British national has been to Peru,’ said anti-drug prosecutor Lincoln Fuentes.
‘For the first time, he had also taken drugs out of the country, most likely using the same properly prepared bag.
‘A kilo of cocaine costs roughly £3,000 in Peru, but this figure doubles dramatically in Europe.’
‘Each drug mule is paid £5,200 to £6,000 per drug run, as well as all their costs, including the tourist vacations they enjoy to disguise their true motivation for coming here,’ he continued.
‘The only reason this individual came here was to take drugs back to Britain.’
‘The prison sentences here are really harsh, and it’s simply not worth the danger of putting your freedom in jeopardy,’ he cautioned fellow Europeans enticed by the money drug gangs offer to get them to transport cocaine out of Peru.
