Travelers are being tempted to smuggle cannabis-filled suitcases into British airports under the false pretense they won’t be caught.
Police have seen an ‘exponential’ rise in so-called ‘marijuana couriers’ daring to try to flood the UK with drugs hidden in their suitcases and even cases involving children.
Passengers were duped into thinking the British authorities would be lenient and let them off the hook with fines – but ended up with hefty prison sentences.
Footage released by the National Crime Agency (NCA) – Britain’s answer to the FBI – shows one female drug mule being arrested after trying to smuggle two suitcases full of cannabis into Heathrow.
Chelsea Allingham, a 40-year-old Canadian citizen, had just arrived at a hotel bar for a celebratory drink for her troubles when NCA officers swooped in and arrested her in May. He was jailed for 10 months.
Dramatic video shows a female drugs courier casually standing at Heathrow with a huge green bag on her back before being arrested by NCA officers.
A huge haul of cannabis, bagged up after being arrested at Manchester Airport. Spanish citizen Fernando Mayans Fuster, 51, was intercepted with eight suitcases containing 158 kilograms of marijuana, after flying from LA in May.
Drug mule ‘Brazen’ strolls through UK airport with suitcase full of cannabis
And in May this year, Spanish citizen Fernando Mayans Fuster, 51, was caught at Manchester Airport with eight suitcases containing 158 kilograms of the drug.
They had arrived on a flight from Los Angeles and it is believed that the haul was one of the biggest passenger strikes at the airport.
He was jailed on July 19 for three years and four months.
This month, 11 British passengers traveling from Thailand were detained at Birmingham airport when Border Force officers allegedly found 510 kilograms of cannabis in their bags.
Law enforcement believes the decriminalization of weed overseas could lead to an increase in weed couriers after the amount of weed seized at airports tripled last year.
They also fear that passengers are being tricked into thinking that the UK has relaxed drug laws that they can leave with fines.
But the deputy director of the NCA Charles Yates warned today that the reality is very different, with 378 arrests for importing cannabis this year and 15 tonnes of cannabis worth £150 million seized.
Authorities are urging travelers to ‘think carefully’ before risking ‘life-changing prison sentences’, with traffickers found guilty of up to 14 years in prison.
Tim Kingsbury, regional director of the southern Border Force, today issued a dire warning to smugglers: ‘You will be caught.’
Border officials have seized 15 tonnes of cannabis with a street value of £150 million from passengers at UK airports so far this year – a 650 per cent increase on the amount seized in 2022.
Arrests of air passengers importing cannabis have also increased by 700 percent – from 17 people in 2022 to 136 in 2023, rising even higher this year with 378 people arrested so far.
Drug couriers have been caught returning from countries such as the US, Canada and Thailand, where cannabis is easier to obtain legally.
Organized gangs are thought to prefer cannabis grown in decriminalized countries because it is cheaper to obtain and can be marketed as a ‘superior’ product.
Smugglers – who have often been persuaded to carry drugs by organized crime gangs – are now so ‘brazen’ that they hardly bother to hide the drugs in their suitcases.
One of the suitcases was filled with marijuana that Fernando Mayans Fuster tried to smuggle into the country
Mr Yates continued: “We’ve seen an exponential rise in people flying into the UK with cannabis stored in their luggage (and) we’re quickly seeing more people walking through airports with suitcases full of cannabis.
‘Furthermore, there has been a dramatic increase in arrests for the importation of cannabis – already this year it has more than doubled for all of 2023.’
Smugglers were mostly British and American nationals last year, the NCA said, but this year they were mostly Britons, Malaysians and Canadians.
About half of all cannabis-related arrests this year (184) came from Thailand, while 75 cannabis-related arrests came from Canada and 47 from the US.
Suspects are usually found to be carrying between 15kg and 40kg of the drug in their suitcases.
The NCA said drug gangs often downplayed the risk of imprisonment when they recruited couriers, saying they would face no more than a fine if caught.
Border officers have seized 15 tonnes of cannabis from passengers at UK airports so far this year – a 650 per cent increase on the amount seized in 2022 (stock image)
Cannabis is said to remain the most widely used illegal drug in the UK, with an estimated 2.5 million people aged 16 to 59 reporting using the drug by 2023.
A number of seizures have led police to unveil tracking devices in luggage, so criminals ‘can track illicit loads’.
This month, 11 British passengers were caught with a total of 510kg of cannabis in 28 pieces of luggage at Birmingham Airport in one day, the NCA said. Passengers had traveled from Thailand via Paris and were all arrested.
The NCA is said to be monitoring the relaxation of drug laws in other countries to see if it has an impact on the UK drug trade. Germany became the largest European country to decriminalize cannabis in April.