Prosecutors in Peru reject guilty pleas by British women accused of drug smuggling Michaella McCollum, 20, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, and Melissa Reid, 20, from Glasgow, pleaded guilty behind closed doors yesterday when they appeared before a judge in the port town of Callao, near the capital Lima. Ms McCollum and Ms Reid initially claimed they were forced to board a flight from Lima to Spain with 24lbs of cocaine in food packets hidden inside their luggage when they were arrested last month. By pleading guilty they sought to reduce the minimum sentence of eight years by a sixth, down to six years and eight months without the possibility of parole. Ms Reid's family has previously said they are working with the Foreign Office in the hope that the Peruvian authorities will allow her to serve part of her sentence in the UK. Both women, who had been working on the Spanish party island of Ibiza this summer, have been held at the harsh Virgen de Fatima prison in Lima. Court officials have said they may be transferred to the equally tough Santa Monica women's jail once they are sentenced. Their guilty pleas came on the same day that the UN declared that Peru has now overtaken Colombia as the world's number one coca leaf producer. According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, coca plantations in Peru covered 60,400 hectares last year. Peru's national prisons institute says that 90% of the 1,648 foreigners in the country's prisons are either sentenced or awaiting trial for drug trafficking. It is still to be confirmed whether media will be able to attend the next hearing or the women's sentencing.