‘Brazen’ drug mules are walking through British airports with suitcases stuffed full of cannabis.
They are being duped by traffickers into believing the UK authorities are soft on the class B drug and will only face a fine if they are caught, the National Crime Agency (NCA) says.
But the deputy director of ‘Britain’s FBI‘, Charles Yates, says the reality is very different with 378 arrests for importing cannabis this year and 15 tonnes of cannabis with a street value of £150 million being seized.
Authorities have fired a warning shot at smugglers to ‘think very carefully’ before running the risk of a ‘life-changing prison sentence’ with those convicted of the crime facing the possibility of spending up to 14 years behind bars.
Tim Kingsbury, regional director of Border Force south, stood outside Heathrow Airport this morning with his hands on his hips to deliver a message to drug smugglers as he said: ‘They will get caught.’
A dramatic video shows a female drug courier casually standing at Heathrow with a bulging green bag on her back before she is arrested by NCA officers.
She looks shocked as she is taken by the arm and is flanked by two officers as she is escorted off the premises and taken into custody.
A dramatic video shows a female drug courier casually standing at Heathrow with a bulging green bag on her back before she is arrested by NCA officers
A huge haul of cannabis, bagged up after it was seized at Manchester Airport. Spanish national Fernando Mayans Fuster, 51, was stopped with eight suitcases containing 158 kilos of cannabis, after flying in from LA in May
‘Brazen’ drug mules are walking through British airports with suitcases stuffed full of cannabis
Mr Kingsbury today lauded Britain’s high technology, good intelligence, and skilled officers in order to detect ‘brazen’ smugglers as he told Good Morning Britain: ‘Don’t forget the dogs. They are also a very good way of detecting.
‘This is high risk stuff for the couriers. They will get caught.’
So far border officials have already 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 total amount seized in 2022.
Arrests of air passengers importing cannabis have similarly skyrocketed 700 per cent – from 17 people in 2022 to 136 in 2023, climbing 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.
Organised gangs are thought to increasingly favour cannabis grown in countries where it has been decriminalised because it is cheaper to obtain and they can market it as a ‘superior’ product.
The smugglers – who have often been persuaded to carry the drugs by organised crime gangs – are now so ‘brazen’ they are said to barely bother concealing the drug in their suitcases.
Mr Yates said: ‘We’ve seen an exponential rise in people flying into the UK with cannabis stowed in their luggage [and] are rapidly seeing more people brazenly walk through airports with suitcases full of cannabis.
‘Subsequently, there has been a dramatic uptick in arrests for the importation of cannabis – already this year more than double those for the whole of 2023.’
Smugglers were predominantly British and American nationals last year, the NCA said, but have largely been British, Malaysian and Canadian this year.
Around half of all arrests this year (184) related to cannabis originating in Thailand, while 75 arrests related to cannabis coming from Canada and 47 from the US.
Typically the suspects are found carrying between 15kg and 40kg of the drug in their suitcases.
The NCA said drugs gangs often downplay the risk of imprisonment when recruiting couriers, telling them they are unlikely to face more than a fine if caught.
One of the suitcases stuffed full of marijuana that Fernando Mayans Fuster tried to smuggle into the country
Border officials have already seized 15 tons of cannabis from passengers at UK airports so far this year – a 650 per cent increase on the total amount seized in 2022 (stock image)
Cannabis is said to remain the most widely used illegal drug in the UK, with approximately 2.5 million people aged 16 to 59 reporting using the drug in 2023.
Several seizures have led police to uncover tracking devices in the luggage, so criminals are ‘able to track their illicit loads’.
This month, 11 British passengers were caught with a total of 510kg of cannabis inside 28 suitcases at Birmingham Airport on a single day, the NCA said. The passengers had travelled from Thailand via Paris and were all arrested.
The NCA are said to be monitoring the relaxation of drug laws in other countries to see if it impacts the UK drugs trade. Germany became the largest European country to partially decriminalise cannabis in April.