Another Thai Brit smuggler suspect arrested with cannabis haul bound for UK after Bella Culley & Charlotte May Lee drama
ANOTHER Thai Brit smuggler suspect has been arrested with a cannabis haul bound for the UK, following similar cases like Bella Culley and Charlotte May Lee.
The 31-year-old suspect was stopped during a transit stop on his way to Newcastle via Frankfurt from Bangkok and was led away in cuffs to be locked up in preventive custody at the Korneuburg prison.
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The arrest took place at Vienna International Airport, a city airport on the outskirts of the Austrian capital yesterday.
Customs officers found 11.3kg of cannabis packed into 13 vacuum-sealed parcels concealed among clothes in the man's suitcase.
The suitcase had been checked in at Bangkok and was labelled for onward travel to Frankfurt and Newcastle.
Police said the street value of the cannabis was approximately £95,000.
According to police, the man, who was not named, refused to confess and made no statement about the contents of the suitcase.
Officials said the investigation is being led by the public prosecutor's office in Korneuburg.
It comes merely a day after a British couple claiming to be tourists from Thailand were busted with more than 33kg of cannabis in their suitcases at a Spanish airport.
The pair were picked out by suspicious cops at Valencia Airport after displaying a 'nervous and evasive attitude' and are now behind bars on drug trafficking charges.
The man and woman, aged 33 and 34, were stopped before reaching customs, with officials later discovering vacuum-packed marijuana and no clothes or personal belongings in their luggage.
This marks the fourth case in weeks involving British nationals and alleged drug smuggling linked to Thailand.
Brit woman, 21, rotting in Dubai hellhole jail without a shower for a month after being arrested on drugs charges
Bella May Culley, 18, sparked a massive international search operation in early May after she was reported missing while she was believed to be holidaying in Thailand.
But it was later revealed that the teen, from Billingham, County Durham, had been arrested 4,000 miles away on drug offences in Georgia, allegedly carrying 14kg of cannabis into the ex-Soviet nation.
The teen - who posted online about living a "Bonnie and Clyde" lifestyle - is now in Georgia's grim No5 Women's Penitentiary near Rustavi, facing 15 years to life in prison.
Her new lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia, a juvenile law specialist, said Bella didn't even know where she was when arrested.
Bella is said to have told her lawyer she is pregnant and cooperated with police for the first time last week, as her anguished dad Niel visited her for 45 minutes and delivered food and clothes.
And recently 21-year-old Charlotte Lee May, from Coulsdon, south London, was arrested in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo after police discovered 46 kg of 'Kush' - a synthetic strain of cannabis - in her suitcase.
The former flight attendant, facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted, is claiming she had 'no idea' about the drugs worth up to £1.2 million.
She insists they must have been planted in her luggage without her knowledge.
Charlotte, a part-time beautician and ex-TUI stewardess, had flown into Sri Lanka from Thailand and was snapped in a white outfit and sparkly sandals just after her arrest.
Her two suitcases were reportedly stuffed with tightly vacuum sealed packages of the deadly synthetic drug, 25 times more potent than fentanyl.
She claims she left her packed bags unattended overnight in her Bangkok hotel while out partying and had no idea what was inside.
'I had never seen them before,' she said.
A mystery British man she met in Thailand was reportedly waiting for her at Colombo airport, and sources fear she may have been under his influence.
Charlotte is now holed up in the overcrowded Welikada Prison, where she's been forced to sleep on a concrete floor, clean herself with a bucket of water and survive on rice and curry.
'She is a total mess,' a source told The Sun.
'She hates the food… The prison is not fit for a rat to live in.'
She broke down in court after being told she may not be sentenced for another 12 months and is now banned from contacting loved ones.
Meanwhile an older British man has been arrested by police in Chile after allegedly being caught trying to smuggle five kilos of methamphetamine into the country.
The 79-year-old was held after leaving a flight from the Mexican resort of Cancun at Santiago Airport.
He was booked on a flight to Sydney in Australia the following day after spending a night at a hotel in the Chilean capital.
The unnamed pensioner was remanded in custody following a court appearance after a judge approved a prosecution request to send him to prison pending probable charges and trial.
Cops say the drugs he was apprehended with would have been worth around £200,000 on the streets of the south American country.
He was intercepted after his luggage was put through an airport scanner.
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