Former Cardiff City and Arsenal player Jay Emmanuel-Thomas sentenced for £600k drugs smuggling plot

Former Cardiff City footballer Jay Emmanuel-Thomas is being sentenced today, June 5, for arranging the smuggling of £600,000 worth of cannabis into the UK. The 34-year-old recruited two women to travel to Thailand where the cannabis was collected before they flew back to this country.

The unwitting couriers - who believed their luggage contained gold - were stopped by Border Force officers at Stansted Airport after getting off a flight from Bangkok in September last year. When their cases where searched officers found a total of 60kg or 132lbs of cannabis.

Emmanuel-Thomas, who was playing for Scottish Championship side Greenock Morton at the time of his arrest, has previously pleaded guilty to the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis. He was due to return to the dock of Chelmsford Crown Court today to be sentenced.

A product of the Arsenal youth setup, Emmanuel-Thomas played for Cardiff on loan during the 2011 season and has also played for teams including QPR, Bristol City, Ipswich, Aberdeen and Thai side PTT Rayong. Join the Cardiff City breaking news and top stories WhatsApp community

The couriers recruited by the defendant were initially charged in connection with the smuggling operation but the prosecution subsequently offered no evidence against them.

Speaking after Emmanuel-Thomas entered his guilty pleas, David Philips, senior investigating officer with the National Crime Agency, 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