A 33 year old unemployed mother of 2 takes off for a three week vacation to Europe while her "cash-strapped" bus driver husband stays home with the kids. That's odd.
She wants to go because she's an avid amateur photographer and sees the trip as a great opportunity to enjoy her hobby. But she takes no camera with her, instead emailing home photos taken with an iPad and a Samsung smartphone.
Rather than flying to Amsterdam and then to Turkey, she flies directly to Turkey and then flies from Istanbul to Amsterdam and then back to Istanbul - an unnecessarily expensive itinerary for someone on a budget who is staying in a hostel.
The only way this makes sense is if she is a drug mule.
It certainly does sound as if something criminal was involved, if not drugs, perhaps serving as a courier of illegal funds in other criminal transactions.
The “photography” claim was clearly false, and now it also turns out that her friend (who was supposed to accompany her) didn’t back out of the trip at the last minute, but actually told her quite some time ago that she wouldn’t be able to go with her.
She sounds to me like somebody who was probably pretty naive and got into something way over her head, probably through one of her internet contacts.
My daughter is an amateur photographer but she has some pretty sophisticated camera equipment. I’ve never seen her use her phone or IPad to take pictures. She also has an 11 year old and a 9 year old and wouldn’t leave them for a minute to travel alone, abroad. This story stinks to high heaven.
I think she thought she had found a way to make some substantial money.
That was my thought precisely when details of her itinerary began to emerge a few days ago. Also in her picture, taken by a Istanbul street security cam, I saw no cameras ... strange if the reason for the trip was to take pictures as a amateur photographer. Bottom line she is probably a drug mule, or works for a escort service and met a Turkish client who encouraged her to travel to Istanbul.