Newcastle Airport cannabis courier 'pressured' by gangsters to import £100k drugs from Thailand
by Rob Kennedy · ChronicleLiveA drugs smuggler caught trying to bring almost £100,000 of cannabis into the UK at Newcastle Airport said he had been pressured by an organised crime group.
On August 30 this year, Border Force were monitoring passengers arriving at Newcastle Airport. Newcastle Crown Court heard they stopped and quizzed Arkadiusz Golab, a Polish national arriving on a flight from Dubai.
He said he had travelled to Thailand from Manchester then stopped over in Dubai before flying to Newcastle. He initially denied anyone had asked him to carry anything back into the UK.
His suitcase was searched and 40 packages of cannabis were found, weighing 23.6 kilos and with a wholesale value of £94,000. Neil Pallister, prosecuting, said: "The defendant was interviewed and said he was approached a number of times to go to Thailand to pick up a package.
"He said he initially refused but was approached again and was persuaded to do so. He said before leaving Manchester to go to Thailand he was given a mobile phone with documentation to board a flight and he was told to buy a Thai sim card and take a taxi to the hotel and he was provided with details of the hotel he stayed at in Bangkok.
"He said he met three men who he believed were involved in an organised crime group. He said other men were also staying at the hotel and being paid to bring back packages to the UK.
"He said they were paid £100 a day expenses while there. Shortly before leaving the hotel, he was given a new phone with return flight documentation.
"At the airport he was met by an organised crime group member who gave him the suitcase. He was told that in Newcastle he needed to collect the suitcase and go through arrivals."
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Golab said he had been told he would be paid £2,000 on successfully smuggling the drugs into the UK and passing it on to a crime group. The 20-year-old, of Gunby Road, Scunthorpe, pleaded guilty to the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis and was sent to a young offenders institution for two years.
Kelly Clarke, defending, said: "The defendant has said from the outset he was pressured into doing this, it was not something he was doing of his own free will. These people were watching his family and making threats - that's the reason he did it.
"He was of the expectation he would just do it once and they would leave him alone. He has no previous convictions and does not even take drugs.
"He lives with his mother in Scunthorpe. He got caught up in the wrong crowd doing the wrong thing. He is clearly remorseful and sorry he has been tangled up in this web."
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