Cocaine death nurse was mule for drug smugglers says Argentine minister

Anibal Fernandez, Argentina’s minister of justice, believes that Laura Hill, 25, was part of a drug-trafficking ring operating from the capital, Buenos Aires.

He said police had wire-tap evidence of her discussing a plan ‘to carry drugs inside her body to Europe’.

Laura’s body was found in the hallway of an apartment block in the city on October 1 last year.

Laura Hill who died on holiday in Argentina was 'a mule for cocaine smugglers'

An autopsy revealed that the Briton, who had travelled to Argentina last August, had suffered substantial injuries.

A toxicology report later showed she had consumed a fatal dose of cocaine. Police did not treat the death as suspicious, despite her wounds.

The ‘drugs mule’ claims stunned Laura’s parents Kevin and Alison Hill, of Eastbourne in Sussex, who recently told The Mail on Sunday they believed their daughter had been murdered.

Mrs Hill said her daughter had no history of drug use and was ‘an ordinary young woman who loved life’. Laura’s parents accuse the Argentine authorities of trying to cover up her murder.

Mr Fernandez said Laura, who lived in Croydon, South London, was arrested as part of a suspected drugs gang a few weeks before her death.

She was detained along with a Colombian and a South Korean whom the minister described as the ‘masterminds’ of the operation. A 30-year-old British man and an 18-year-old Bulgarian were also arrested. All were released without charge.

The arrests came after an operation by anti-drugs police, which led to the discovery of 18,500 Ecstasy pills and 101⁄2lb of cocaine, with a combined street value in the UK of £280,000. Money and guns were also found.

Mr Fernandez said that during the investigation, police wire-tapped conversations between Laura and the South Korean man ‘in which they negotiated her suitability to act as a mule to take drugs to Europe but they did not manage to finalise it, as they could not agree about the best way to hide the drugs’.

One of the ideas discussed is said to have been swallowing drugs in protective wrappers, though suggestions that the cocaine consumed by Laura was part of a consignment she had intended to transport in this way have been dismissed.

Aldo de la Fuente, the Argentine magistrate leading the police investigation, said that the cocaine found in her body had been taken ‘nasally’. He said: ‘She had been partying a lot.’

Last night Mrs Hill said: ‘There was nothing in Laura’s life to suggest she was involved with drugs. Why are the Argentine authorities making all these allegations about her now?

'We want to get to the truth but there’s been conflicting information from the outset.’