A professional footballer has admitted orchestrating the smuggling of £600,000 worth of cannabis to the UK, following a National Crime Agency investigation.
Jay Emmanuel Thomas, 34, recruited two women to travel to Thailand, where the cannabis was collected and smuggled to the UK.
On 2 September 2024, Thomas’s girlfriend Yasmin Piotrowska, 33, and her friend Rosie Rowland, 29, were stopped by Border Force officers at Stansted Airport after landing on a flight from Bangkok.
They had two suitcases each, which were searched, and a total of 60kg of cannabis, 15kg in each bag, was recovered.
Piotrowska, of Kensal Green, London, and Rowland, of Chelmsford, Essex, were charged with smuggling cannabis.
Earlier this month, Thomas, who has played for Arsenal, Queens Park Rangers and Ipswich Town, admitted smuggling cannabis when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court.
The case was adjourned, and on May 21, the Crown offered no evidence against the women, who said they believed they were transporting gold, and they were acquitted.
It is believed that Thomas, of Gourock, near Glasgow, was the intermediary between suppliers in Thailand and drug pushers in the UK.
The investigation revealed that, with Thomas’s encouragement, the women had made a nearly identical trip, all expenses paid, and with a promised payment of £2,500, just a few months earlier in July.
Thomas, who played for PTT Rayong in Thailand in 2019, was arrested on 18 September last year after signing for Greenock Morton FC in Scotland.
On his way to custody after being arrested, he said unprompted, “I just feel sorry for the girls.”
He will be sentenced on a date to be confirmed.
David Philips, NCA senior investigating officer, said, “Organised crime groups make significant profits by trafficking and selling perceived high-quality cannabis legally grown in the US, Canada and Thailand illegally in the UK.
“Organised criminals like Thomas can be very persuasive and offer payment to couriers. But the risk of getting caught is very high and it simply isn’t worth it.”
