Betrayed: The incredible untold inside story of the two most unlikely drug-running grannies in Australian history

Two American women, Vera Toddie Hays and Florice Beezie Bessire, were unknowingly involved in a drug smuggling operation from Germany to India in 1977. They were arrested by Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents and faced various challenges in the aftermath. Journalist Sandi Logan has written a book about their story, "Drug Grannies: The Wild Ride of Two American Women Who Became Australia's Drug Grannies."

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2022
Publisher: Hachette Australia

Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime 2023




A relentlessly fascinating and often jaw-dropping true story of two American women who unwittingly became Australia's "Drug Grannies."


In 1977, Vera Toddie Hays and Florice Beezie Bessire thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew, Vern Todd, offered them a campervan to drive from Germany to India. Little did the women know that Vern and his accomplices would secretly pack two tonnes of hashish into the vehicle along the way.


This shocking inside story chronicles Toddie and Beezie's wild ride across continents and oceans to our shores, their arrest by Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents, and all that the women faced in the aftermath.


On the ground at the time, journalist Sandi Logan draws from his interviews with those attached to the events, and accounts in the women's diaries, to tell the incredible tale of an unlikely pair who became infamous and their fight for justice.

Weight: 446g
Dimension: 152 x 235 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780733648601