Michelle Leslie, 24, known for modelling Antz Pantz, a well-known brand, has become the latest of a number of Australians to be caught with drugs in Indonesia, prompting complaints that its police are targeting tourists.

While Leslie’s urine test found no trace of ecstasy, police said that the model had been charged with possessing psychotropic drugs and, if convicted, would face a minimum jail sentence of four years and a maximum of 15. She will be held for several months while her case is prepared. Indonesia does not grant bail to suspected drug dealers.

Leslie, whose boyfriend Scott Sutton is heir to an £80m car dealership fortune, was arrested after Balinese police searched her car as she was driving with two friends to a party last weekend at a park near Kuta, in the south of the island. Police said they found two pink tablets wrapped in tissue paper inside her Gucci handbag.

Major Mardiaz Kusin, an intelligence officer with the Bali drug squad, said Leslie claimed to have been given the pills by two friends at dinner. But the police allege that the pills were bought from a street dealer for £8 each.

Ross Hill, Leslie’s Australian lawyer, said she was bearing up well and “handling the matter in the most remarkable fashion”. Sutton said he was “standing by Michelle 100%”.

Leslie’s arrest follows the conviction of Schapelle Corby, 27, a former Australian beautician who was jailed for 20 years in May for smuggling 9lb of marijuana into Bali.

Nine other Australians face death by firing squad after being detained last month at Bali airport with several bags of heroin allegedly strapped to their bodies. The only female member of the Bali Nine, as they have become known to the Australian press, has attempted suicide in her prison cell. Their trials are due to begin soon.

Australians have reacted angrily to the severity of the sentences, particularly since the Indonesian authorities have cut the jail terms of those behind the Bali bombings in 2002. Of the 202 people who were killed, 88 were Australian.

John Howard, the prime minister of Australia, said he was astonished by the recent flurry of drug arrests.

It was “beyond belief” that young Australians could be “so stupid” as to risk having anything to do with drugs in Asia, he said. “We have told Australians, young Australians again and again, don’t take drugs out of this country, don’t take them into Asian countries because you can’t expect any mercy.”

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