A Co Armagh woman was caught with 44 kilos of cannabis – with an estimated street value of £1.1 million – in her suitcase at Heathrow airport.
On Sunday, September 22, Siobhan McAtavey, from Keady, arrived on a flight from Bangkok via Doha.
Border Force officers found 44 kilos of the drug in the 24-year-old’s baggage.
McAtavey pleaded guilty and was was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment at Isleworth Crown Court in London on Wednesday.
McAtavey was one of three people caught smuggling cannabis into Heathrow that same weekend.
On Friday, September 20, Raekelle Powell, 22, a professional volleyball player from Toronto in Canada, arrived on a flight from that city and was stopped after officers discovered approximately 19 kilos of the class B drug in a suitcase.
When interviewed she said she was paid 300 Canadian dollars to carry the suitcase. The drugs had an estimated UK street value of £600,000.
Malaysian national Meu Chew Wong, 42, arrived from Bangkok via Bahrain on Sunday, September 22, and was arrested after 43 kilos of cannabis with a UK street value of £1.26 million was found in his two suitcases.
He was arrested by Border Force officers and questioned by NCA investigators, during which he claimed he was transporting birds’ nests for payment of 10,000 Malaysian Ringgit (approximately £1,775).
Powell was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and Wong to 16 months imprisonment.
In August, the National Crime Agency (NCA) issued a warning to travellers arriving into the UK from Thailand, Canada and the USA that they face jail sentences if caught attempting to smuggle cannabis into the country. However, arrests are still being made and the amount of cannabis seized in the UK so far in 2024 is three times more than the whole of 2023.
The increase in these seizures is fuelled by organised crime gangs who have access to cannabis grown overseas, in locations where it is legal, who are recruiting couriers to transport it to the UK where it can generate greater profit for them than growing the drugs themselves.
NCA Senior Investigating Officer Piers Phillips said: “These sentences should act as a stark warning to anybody thinking of smuggling cannabis into the UK – you will be arrested, prosecuted and put into prison.
“The gangs responsible for this trade have no concern for the fate of the couriers they employ to smuggle the drugs. All they care about is maximising profit and making their criminal enterprises viable.
“We continue to work with our partners at home, including Border Force, and those abroad to disrupt this trade and destroy the business model being used.”
The NCA continues to work with law enforcement partners in both the UK and overseas to target high-risk routes, seize shipments of drugs and disrupt the criminal gangs involved, denying them profits.
Anyone with information on the smuggling of drugs through UK ports is urged to report it, anonymously if they prefer, by calling Border Force’s Customs Hotline on 0800 595 000.
