Exclusive! Amanda Knox Caught Up In Cocaine Scandal

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ENQUIRER Special Investigation reveals the new information that could wreck AMANDA KNOX’s fight for extradition in bombshell murder case. PLUS: Secret VIDEO footage revealed!

As "Foxy Knoxy" prepares to appeal her recent murder re-conviction, disturbing new information could end her life as a free woman. For years, Italian prosecutors have claimed that British exchange student Meredith Kercher was killed in a drug-fueled frenzy.

Now The  ENQUIRER can reveal Knox’s reportedly disturbing links to local cocaine dealers in the days before and after the bloody crime. Kercher was found brutally stabbed to death in the apartment that she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy, on Nov. 1, 2007.

Knox, her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and alleged local drug dealer and petty thief Rudy Guede were charged with the crime.

In his closing statement, lead prosecutor Giuliano Mignini argued that Kercher was murdered “under the fumes of drugs and alcohol.” Knox and Sollecito were tried together, and found guilty in 2009.

In a separate trial, Guede was convicted and given a 30-year jail term that was later reduced to 16 years.

Two years later, as the former lovers languished in jail, local news media reported that a cocaine ring in Perugia had been uncovered with information police found on Knox’s seized cell phone. A man listed on Knox’s phone and two other men oversaw a “drug ring for university students and professionals,” the report said.

According to the report, cell phone calls between the man and Knox “occurred in the days before and after the murder of (Kercher).”

Authorities also said an “Italian person… from time to time replenished Amanda Knox’s narcotic substances, as well as having allegedly had with her the relationship of a sexual nature.”

Meanwhile, Knox has readily admitted knowing Guede, a alleged drug dealer from the Ivory Coast. Throughout Guede’s trial,multiple witnesses accused him of frequent public intoxication and the use of “narcotic substances,” including “cocaine.” In the weeks before the murder, Knox and Guede reportedly spent time together at Le Chic nightclub, where she worked, and at the apartment she shared with Kercher, where he visited a group of boys who lived below them. At the same time, Knox was spending money like water.

According to her bank statements, obtained by The ENQUIRER, Knox spent only about $638 in her hometown of Seattle in July 2007, before leaving for Italy. In August, her first month in Europe, her spending skyrocketed to a whopping $2,765.33. In September, she withdrew $2,452.60 from European ATMs. In October, she took out $1,637.25. Knox and Sollecito have admitted to using marijuana, which became a key issue both during their first trial and later appeal.

Even as recently as closing statements in their retrial in December 2013, Kercher family attorney Vieri Enrico Faviani told the court, “We have seen that all of this happened… in conjunction with taking drugs.” Knox herself has admitted, “Around our house, marijuana was as common as pasta.” Now, with the appeal process and potential extradition looming, that admission and her alleged connections to harder drugs threaten to put “Foxy Knoxy” behind bars for the rest of her life.

PLUS! VIDEO FOOTAGE QUESTIONS KNOX ALIBI Did she or didn’t she? Amanda Knox’s guilt is again in question after Italian investigative program “Quarto Grado” released footage that throws doubt on her alibi for the murder of Meredith Kercher, The National ENQUIRER has learned.

The footage shows a woman – who strikingly resembles Knox, then 20 – walking near Kercher’s home in Perugia at 8:53 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2007. “Quarto Grado” claims the woman’s clothes are identical to the jeans and long coat that Knox was seen wearing after the crime. Even her walk echoes public footage of Knox’s gait. Although Knox, now 26, has consistently claimed she was with Raffaele Sollecito, both were found guilty of murder in 2009. They spent four years in an Italian prison before the verdict was overturned and Knox was able to return to the U.S. In January a higher Italian court reinstated their guilty verdicts.

Knox faces 28 years of hard time behind Italian bars, but has sworn to never return to Italy – declaring she’d fight extradition if the guilty verdict is sustained in the next appeal.