Real reason Katie Price’s husband Lee Andrews was arrested as conman’s claim he was held for spying is debunked
KATIE Price has found hubby Lee Andrews after two weeks — and he claims he was detained on suspicion of spying.
She spoke to conman Lee, 43, for two minutes this morning after his dad put her in touch. Katie, 48, says the call came from Dubai’s Al Awir jail.
She said: “It was very rushed but he said the authorities out there thought he was a spy.”
Relieved Katie added: “I told him how worried I’d been and that I loved him.”
Panicked Katie raised the alarm on May 13, telling fans Lee had been tied up, put in a van and taken to a “black site” after being “arrested”.
Now she says Lee has told her he was detained on suspicion of spying, and is being held at Dubai’s Al Awir prison.
Katie’s contact with her husband came after his dad Peter texted her to explain his whereabouts.
She said: “I have found him. He is alive, and he is OK. I told him how worried I had been and told him I loved him.
“It was very rushed, but he said the authorities out there thought he was a spy. I don’t know much more than that right now.”
Lee, who lives full-time in Dubai, is believed to have been arrested on May 14.
The Sun, however, understands he has been detained over claims relating to a private civil matter. Authorities have confirmed to us he was NOT held over spying charges.
He is due for release on Monday, but must pay a four-figure fine.
Lee once reposted an Instagram post suggesting he should be the next James Bond.
And he is seen “acting” in an excruciating 2016 video on his YouTube channel titled “Charity TV show: The Agent”.
A comment adds: “Featuring billionaire defense (sic) contractor H.E Weslee Peter John Andrews.”
Espionage is one of the most serious crimes in the United Arab Emirates.
In 2018 Brit PhD student Matthew Hedges was held at Dubai airport on suspicion of spying.
He was jailed for life but pardoned and released following intense international pressure.
In the days before Lee’s arrest he had moved belongings out of his rental apartment, and had moved in briefly with his father, staying in his run-down villa.
It is not known where he disappeared to after this, and his family filed a missing person’s report at the British embassy in Dubai.
On May 19, The Sun told how Lee duped our Clemmie Moodie into investing £1,000 on the promise of quadrupling her investment. It was a bogus scheme, seemingly using documents made using AI.
Before our front-page revelations, two of Lee’s exes shared horror stories involving the fraudster.
Cell floor sleeps at Alcatraz of Dubai
By Amir Razavi
AL Awir Central Prison is a notorious hellhole dubbed the “Dubai Alcatraz”.
Inmates include Irish gangster Daniel Kinahan, boss of the Kinahan Cartel, who was nicked in April.
The jail has been repeatedly slammed by human rights groups due to the grim conditions.
Prisoners have had to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding.
Male inmates have their heads shaved, and are punished if hair gets long.
Others have previously been denied HIV treatment while imprisoned, according to Human Rights Watch.
Those caught spying in the UAE face a life sentence, which is capped at 25 years.
Non-Emiratis are deported immediately after completing their term.
PhD student Matthew Hedges, then 31, received the maximum penalty in 2018 after an Abu Dhabi court found him guilty of “spying for or on behalf of” the British government.
Matthew, who studied at Durham University, was left with PTSD after being tortured in solitary confinement for six months.
He was kept in handcuffs and plied with drugs.
Matthew was pardoned by the country’s president in 2018, days after his sentencing.
Texan nurse Crystal Janke said she had put £123,000 into one of his schemes on the promise of getting £1million, only to lose it all.
Lee’s ex-fiancée Alana Percival — who he proposed to over rose petals and champagne five weeks before rehashing the method with Katie — branded him a manipulative narcissist who feigned a heart condition for sympathy.
Alana claimed he was a swindler and told Katie to “run for the hills”.
Mum-of-five Katie and Lee wed in Dubai in January, days after meeting in person for the first time. He is said to be subject to a travel ban there following imprisonment for fraud last October.
Lee has been exposed for faking his CV, claiming he had worked for the King’s Trust and had a doctorate from Cambridge university.
He has never worked for the Labour Party — as he had claimed on his LinkedIn page.
Last week Katie admitted she was “giving up the search” for Lee after deleting an update about his situation.
She told podcast The Katie Price Show she was “leaving it to the police”, adding: “There’s nothing more I can do, that I can say.
“I’m just staying quiet because it’s getting ridiculous now, people taking the p**s out of everything.”
Katie added: “The police are now handling it, the British police, British consulate, the Foreign Office, Interpol they’re looking for Lee. All I can do is just get on with my life. I’ve got lots of exciting things coming up, and I’m just waiting for a call. What am I supposed to do, sit here and cry and do nothing, stay in bed? For my own sanity, I am taking a step back.”
Last weekend Lee’s dad Peter told the Daily Mail: “Lee is OK. He has not been kidnapped but is under arrest. I don’t know on what charge. I’m not sure where he is being held.”
Katie wrote: “This is fake news. Lee is still missing. Me and his family know what’s going on and are working with the authorities.”
The drama started earlier this month when Lee was due to fly to the UK for an interview with Katie on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
He failed to turn up, leaving her to face the music on her own, humiliating her in the process.
- IN tomorrow’s Sun, we reveal how HSBC investigated Clemmie’s payment to Lee, and within 24 hours her money had been returned — vindicating allegations of him being a scammer. The bank’s head of fraud reveals the steps you can take to avoid getting swindled and how to claim back your money, step by step, should you have fallen victim to a similar scam.
