A 45-year-old man was arrested at London Heathrow Airport on Wednesday after customs officers discovered 100 kilos of cannabis tightly packed in several suitcases after he had just flown from Bangkok, Thailand.
Shockingly, the man was traveling with his two children, and one of the suitcases containing the drugs was checked in under the name of one of his kids.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates that if sold, the seized cannabis would have a street value of £1 million. In total, customs officers found 160 vacuum-sealed packages of the Class B drug.
Following his arrest on September 18, Nathaniel Benson from Leeds was charged with importing drugs.
“Working with our partners in Border Force, we continue to clamp down on anyone involved in drugs smuggling,” commented NCA Senior Investigating Officer Ian Truby.
“This includes both the couriers and the organized criminals behind importations like this one.”
The NCA has seen a huge influx in the amount of cannabis illegally imported into the United Kingdom, with the amount seized so far in 2024 already over three times the amount that was seized in all of 2023.
Because cannabis remains a prohibited drug in the UK, there is a huge demand for better quality cannabis grown in countries where it is legal to do so.
In recent years, the NCA has witnessed the growth of foreign students being hired to smuggle cannabis in from the United States and Canada.
In April, a Canadian woman was arrested at Glasgow Airport on suspicion of attempting to smuggle cannabis worth as much as £110,000 into the UK after customs officers became suspicious when she said she planned to catch an Uber for a seven-hour drive down to London.
Because the NCA and customs officers have stepped up checks on flights from cannabis smuggling hotspots like Los Angeles and Toronto, some couriers are trying to bypass checks by flying into the UK on connecting flights.
22-year-old Alisha Penney flew from Toronto to Frankfurt and then onto Glasgow in an attempt to avoid any suspicion that she might be smuggling cannabis from Canada.
The maximum penalty for simple possession of cannabis is up to five years imprisonment, while the supply of the drug could land a suspect behind bars for as long as 14 years.
Both offenses can also be punished with an unlimited fine, although sentences are typically much more lenient.
One gram of Cannabis can sell for between £10 and £12, but the NCA says Californian or Canadian cannabis can command much higher prices because it is much better quality than the cannabis typically grown in the UK.
