WIREDGOV

A professional footballer has been jailed for orchestrating the smuggling of £600,000 worth of cannabis to the UK, following a National Crime Agency investigation

Former Arsenal prodigy Jay Emmanuel Thomas, 34, was sentenced to four years when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday 5 June.

Last month he admitted orchestrating the plot which saw him recruit 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.

But the Crown dropped the case against the pair who said they believed they were transporting gold.

It is believed Thomas - who also played for Queens Park Rangers, Ipswich Town and PTT Rayong in Thailand in 2019 - 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 near identical trip – all expenses paid and a promised payment of £2,500 - a few months earlier in July.

Thomas, of Gourock, near Glasgow, was arrested on 18 September last year after he had signed for Greenock Morton FC in Scotland.

On his way to custody after being arrested, he said unprompted: “I just feel sorry for the girls.”

David Philips, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “We urge anyone asked to bring something into the UK that they’re unsure of to simply say no.

“Organised criminals like Thomas are invariably very persuasive with promises of payments and other enticements to couriers. But the risk of getting caught is very high and it simply isn’t worth the risk.

“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.”