Brit mum, 31, faces 'decades' in Cambodian jail after being caught ‘trying to smuggle drugs to UK'
The 31-year-old claims she was the victim of a “set-up”
A British mother is facing up to 20 years in a “hellhole” Cambodian jail after claiming she was unknowingly recruited as a drug mule.
Listen to this article
Tamara Martins, from Croydon, was arrested after allegedly attempting to leave the country with 71 packages of cannabis - amounting to nearly 35kg – in her luggage.
The mother claimed she was approached by a man in a bar who asked her to take a suitcase full of electronics back to the UK for a fee, according to reports.
The 31-year-old now claims she was the victim of a “set-up” – and that she only found out about the cannabis when staff at Techo Airport checked her bags.
Her family are now desperately trying to get her back safely to the UK, with the mother "thousands of miles away" from her young daughter.
Tamara’s 10-year-old daughter, who does not know that her mum is in jail, is being looked after by her younger brother Trey.
Trey himself was not aware that his sister was in Cambodia until she called him crying.
“All I heard was her crying. She said, ‘I’ve been arrested. I’ve been arrested’,” he told the Daily Mail, adding that Tamara had never previously had run-ins with the law.
“She was extremely erratic. She was upset, asking if I could do anything to help, and saying how sorry she was.”
The pair were able to stay in contact for the first few days while Tamara was at the tourist detention centre, but her phone was later confiscated when she was moved to a women’s prison.
In a now-deleted GoFundMe post, Trey wrote: "Everything has happened incredibly quickly.
"As a family, we are doing everything we possibly can from here, contacting the British authorities, trying to arrange welfare support and desperately trying to secure proper legal representation for her in Cambodia.
"The reality is that we cannot do this alone.
"Legal representation and the costs involved in supporting Tamara from another country are more than our family can manage by ourselves.
"We are raising money so that she can have a lawyer there to protect her rights, understand exactly what is happening to her and make sure she is not facing this situation completely alone."
Cambodia enforces a strict zero-tolerance policy on illicit drugs under the Law on Drug Control, carrying severe penalties ranging from five years to life imprisonment.
Tamara is reportedly being held in a cell with more than 60 other women, with many forced to sleep on the hard floor.
In a letter to her brother, she described prison conditions as “hell”, saying she has been unable to sleep or eat.
“I have to try not to think so much about life at home, otherwise I’ll die from a broken heart […] it’s really difficult and hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she wrote.
Trey added: “Tamara is not just somebody whose name is attached to a legal case. She is my sister. She is a daughter. And she is a mum with a little girl waiting for her.”
Tamara is now among 355 Britons reportedly detained in South East Asia, accused of being recruited as drug mules.
Drug-smuggling arrests involving Britons overseas more than quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, according to the Foreign Office.
Unwitting tourists are often told luggage bound for the UK contains clothes, gold or cash - when, in fact, the suitcases contain drugs.