A solicitor representing one of the two women held on suspicion of drug-smuggling in Peru is due to fly out today for a preliminary court hearing.
Peter Madden from Belfast has told colleagues he expects to spend at least a week in Lima.
Michaella McCollum, 20, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, has been accused with Scottish woman Melissa Reid, 19, of trying to leave the country with 10.8kg of cocaine in their luggage.
They were detained while trying to board a flight from the Peruvian capital to Spain last week.
The women claim they are victims of a violent gang who coerced them into carrying the drugs.
They say they have resigned themselves to the likelihood that they face a lengthy prison term.
Police are waiting for a translator before officially questioning the two, which is expected to happen in the next few days.
Mr Madden said his first priority when he reaches Lima is to engage a legal team to represent his client.
Mr Madden said that he spoke briefly with Ms McCollum by telephone and that she denied everything.
He said she sounded well but that she is in a difficult position for a young girl to be in that environment.
He confirmed Ms McCollum has not been charged yet.
Mr Madden said the McCollum family were funding the legal costs at the moment and said it was important people rallied around to help them.
Mr Madden is one of Northern Ireland's best-known lawyers and has been involved in a number of high-profile cases.
He is a former colleague of murdered human rights solicitor Pat Finucane, who was shot dead by loyalists in north Belfast in 1989.
Mr Madden was involved in the legal representation of three Irish republicans who were arrested in 2001 in Colombia for allegedly training members of the FARC.
They eventually returned to Ireland in 2005.
Ms Reid and Ms McCollum have claimed they were given the cocaine outside their hotel, the Hotel Colonial San Agustin in Lima, the day before they were due to fly back to Spain.
The two, who deny drug-trafficking allegations, claim they were ordered at gunpoint by Colombian gangsters to smuggle the drugs out of Lima.
The women had been working on the Spanish island of Ibiza, where they say they were snared by a drug cartel, robbed of their passports and phones and followed as they travelled on separate flights from Spain to Peru.
Once in South America, they say they were ordered to carry the cocaine hidden inside food packets.
Ms Reid and Ms McCollum could be held pre-charge for up to 30 days and then could spend up to three years in prison before a trial.
If convicted, they could face lengthy sentences in an overcrowded Peruvian prison where they will have to pay for everything, including food and bedding.
Relatives of both women are travelling to Peru.
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