WAR ON DRUGS
Smugglers hiding cannabis in luggage at record rates – but are barely trying to hide it
Despite many being fooled into thinking sentences are light, cannabis smugglers face up to 14 years in jail
BRAZEN drug smugglers are hiding cannabis in suitcases at soaring rates - with triple the amount seized at UK airports this year.
A whopping 15 tonnes was seized from baggage in the past eight months, compared to five tonnes in 2023, crime fighters say.
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The National Crime Agency (NCA) revealed a spike in mules using suitcases to ferry the class B drug through popular airports.
It is said that gangs are cashing in on low-overheads by buying bulk from countries where weed is legal such as the United States.
The product has the same strength as pot grown domestically, but criminals do not have to operate energy-guzzling covert farms.
Cannabis users are also prepared to pay a premium for products deemed to be better because they are grown in legal settings.
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Mules - mostly from poor backgrounds - are being paid up to £10,000 to fly weed back to the UK and told that it is low risk.
Cops seized a record 1120lbs (510kg) from 28 suitcases carried by 11 people at Birmingham Airport on August 9 alone.
The 11 suspects, eight men and three women, are aged from 20 to 35 and come from London, the north, and one from Cornwall.
Their mammoth stash is seen in footage shared with The Sun by the NCA - with piles of pot and cases shown off by officers.
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Another case saw Spanish national Fernando Fuster, 51, jailed for three years and four months after arriving at Manchester Airport with 350lbs (158kg) of weed from cannabis-haven Los Angeles in May.
Of the 378 people nicked this year - Brits accounted for the highest proportion, followed by Malaysian, at 93, Canadian, 64, and ten Americans.
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Shocking footage shows the moment one passenger was found with a huge sack of weed inside his case at Birmingham Airport.
The case - not linked to the record haul - shows how unsophisticated many mules are in their part of the smuggling operation.
Charles Yates, the National Crime Agency's deputy director, described the concealment methods in cases as crude and amateur.
He said: "So I think this is one of the big changes. So some of the concealment places are very, very, very basic.
"Like you open the suitcase and it's full of cannabis. Sometimes they might vacuum pack it, for example.
"But it's not disguised in the way that you might anticipate that a smuggler might disguise things."
He warned that cannabis smugglers face up to 14 years in jail if caught - despite being fooled into thinking sentences are light.
Mr Yates said: "We've seen an exponential rise in people flying into the UK with cannabis stowed into their luggage, all of whom are running senseless risks by doing so.
"We're rapidly seeing more people brazenly walk through airports with suitcases full of cannabis.
"Officers have recovered electronic tracking devices from amongst the drugs believed to have been placed there by organised criminals at source so they can track their illicit loads.
"This is very different from more well-known methods where couriers go to great lengths to hide drugs in bags and even ingest them."
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Last year arrests of people importing cannabis as air passengers increased 800 per cent, from 17 people in 2022 to 136 in 2023.
Cannabis is the most popular drug consumed in the UK - with 2.5million Brits aged 16-59 admitting to trying it.
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