The National Crime Agency claims that traffickers are tricking them into believing that the UK authorities are lenient towards cannabis and will only penalize them.
A father was sentenced to more than three years in prison in July after arriving in court from Los Angeles with 158 kg of the Class-B substance in his and his children’s baggage, which had a street worth of £1 million.
This month, eleven Thai-born British travelers were detained at Birmingham airport when Border Force agents purportedly discovered 510 kg of marijuana in their luggage.
The deputy director of the NCA, Harles Yates, stated: “It’s pretty blatant.
Carriers are simply strolling through airports with luggage stuffed with cannabis, believing they won’t be caught and that the worst that will happen to them is a fine.
“The reality is far different; we are apprehending a lot of people and witnessing the incarceration of couriers. The numbers have increased significantly during the last many years.”
There were 17 of these arrests in 2022, 136 in the previous year, and 378 thus far this year. The quantity of cannabis seized increased from two to fifteen tonnes during the same time frame.
