Brit, 23, Faces Death Penalty After Trying To ‘Smuggle 9kg Of Meth Out Of Thailand’
We almost made it a whole month before hearing about another Brit being busted abroad for attempting to smuggle copious amounts of drugs in/out of a country where you really don’t want to be doing that, but now here we have the case 23-year-old George Wilson from of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
George was found with 9.15kg of crystal meth in a Bangkok hotel room on Monday, and was allegedly planning to smuggle the drugs out of Thailand.
He claims he was given the suitcase by another Brit in Bangkok, but whatever happened, police were all over it and swooped on the hotel room at Le Fenix on Sukhumvit Soi 11 to arrest George.
In the arrest video, George is heard telling police he had been in Thailand for ‘two weeks’. When asked what is in the bag, he says ‘I don’t know’.
Officers then open the suitcase and sure enough, find 10 green foil bags of Chinese tea packed with crystal meth hidden under a pair of flip-flops and a white towel.
As is customary in Thailand, they then get the arrested party to pose with the drugs:
One to show the grandkids. That is – if George ever gets round to having grandkids, seeing as he’s now looking at the death penalty.
Lieutenant Colonel Noppha Thongbo, from the Lumpini district station, said: ‘The suspect’s full name is George Henry Allaway Wilson, born on 29 July, 2002, from High Wycombe.
‘He was arrested on September 29 at 6pm. He is currently in police custody and will be taken to the Bangkok South Criminal Court for detention in prison.’
George told police that he received the pink suitcase from a Brit named ‘Snoopy’. He says he received £460 GBP for his role in the chain.
He was due to carry the suitcase through Suvarnabhumi International Airport and onto the destination country, where another member of the drugs gang was due to meet him.
Thai police revealed they had been tracking the suspects for a number of days following intelligence gathered from their movements, and so it was only a matter of time before they swooped in.
Colonel Siranawitcha Intorn, Superintendent of the Crime Suppression Division, Metropolitan Police Bureau Division 5, said: ‘George Wilson has been charged with distributing Category 1 narcotics, specifically methamphetamine or ice, with intent to sell in violation of the law, which constitutes a commercial act that contributes to the spread of the drug among the public.
‘We believe he was part of a cross-border drug smuggling network, which is very serious. The amount of drugs seized was also very large. The highest levels of the Royal Thai Police have coordinated to make the arrest.’
Sounds very serious indeed. The ‘good news’ for George is that the death penalty is rarely used in Thailand, even for cases as serious as this. However, the alternative is life in prison, which is arguably worse, or if he’s very lucky, mitigating factors may help the sentence be reduced to 20 or 10 years at the very least.
The maddest part is that George didn’t even make it to the airport, where they most likely would have nabbed him anyway with all the checks and sophisticated scanners they’ve got going on.
All that risk for £460? I mean, that was probably either a lie or a down payment and he would receive the rest later, but I can’t imagine the sum would have been anywhere near enough risking his life and future over.
On the bright side, he now has excellent opportunity to start learning and speaking Thai. Might as well make the most of it.
For the two girls who were recently caught smuggling 35kg of cannabis from New York to Birmingham, click HERE. Guess what? They got a slap on the wrist.
