Meet The Female Assassin Hired To Take Out Drug Dealers At £330 Per Hit In Philippines

She's the female assassin hired to execute drug dealers on behalf of her government.

Her life may sound like something from a glamorous Hollywood blockbuster but in reality it's anything but.

'Maria' moves from safe house to safe house constantly fearing for her life and worried she won't be allowed to quit a brutal commission which sees her paid £330 per hit.

She is just one of those caught up in the Phillipines' brutal drug war, where controversial President Rodrigo Duterte has come chillingly good on his warning to drug dealers: "Do not destroy my country, because I will kill you."

President Duterte was elected on a promise to get tough on the country's crystal met crisis which has seen it gripped by crime and addiction.

According to police, around 2,000 people have been killed since he took office two months ago.

Maria - not her real name - is now carrying out contract killings as part of a state-sanctioned war on drugs taking the lives of often low-level criminals.

She was first enlisted through her police officer husband and has now killed five people.

She told the BBC: "One time, they needed a woman... my husband tapped me to do the job. When I saw the man I was supposed to kill, I got near him and I shot him."

Maria, from an poverty-stricken neighbourhood in Manila, says she was hired as officials believe she can get closer to her victims without arousing the suspicion a man would.

She now wants to do one last job but fears she has no way out and could be targeted by the families of those she's gunned down.

Racked with guilt, she tries to unburden herself by going to confession but cannot even bring herself to tell the priest what she has done - and just asks for forgiveness instead.

She said: "I feel guilty and it is hard on my nerves. I don't want the families of those I have killed to come after me.

"I do not want them (her children) to come back at us and say that they got to live because we killed for money."

Duterte has granted cops immunity from prosecution despite concerns he has in his bid also legitimised mass murder.