Three Britons could face death penalty in Bali over charges of smuggling cocaine in Angel Delight sachets
Three Britons could face the death penalty in Bali after appearing in court charged with smuggling nearly a kilogram of cocaine into Indonesia.
Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 28, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 29, were arrested on 1 February after customs officers stopped them at the X-ray machine after finding suspicious items in their luggage, prosecutors claimed.
A lab test result confirmed that 10 sachets of Angel Delight powdered dessert mix in Collyer's luggage combined with seven similar sachets in his partner's suitcase contained 993.56 grams of cocaine, worth an estimated six billion rupiah (£272,000), prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara told the District Court in the regional capital Denpasar.
Phineas Ambrose Float, 31, was arrested two days later after police set up a controlled delivery in which the other two suspects allegedly handed him the drug in the parking area of a hotel in Denpasar. He is being tried separately.
Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are sometimes executed by firing squad.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
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Pablo Escobar's top cocaine pilot details working for drug lord in new podcast
A man who eventually became Pablo Escobar's go-to cocaine pilot has revealed that he first turned down an employment offer from the notorious Colombian drug lord because he was content with the $4m a month he was earning while flying for a competitor. But, in a new podcast containing what is believed to be his first interview since authorities arrested him at his Florida mansion in 1988, Tirso 'TJ' Dominguez recounted how he changed his mind about working for Escobar when the so-called Patron – or boss – offered him a salary that was five times higher: $20m monthly. 'I had 30 Lamborghinis, and I dressed well,' Dominguez says of his ensuing lifestyle during the eight-part documentary podcast titled Cocaine Air, a copy of which was provided to the Guardian. 'They brought me the car that matched the shirt that I decided to wear that day.' The interview that Dominguez granted Cocaine Air host Johnathan Walton after spending more than a dozen years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering provides a stark, first-hand account of what would motivate someone to work for one of the world's most infamous criminals. Escobar had a hand in murders, kidnappings and bombings before Colombia's special forces shot him to death in 1993. As he told it to Walton, Dominguez only became involved in drug smuggling in the late 1970s after his father, a south Florida real estate developer, unexpectedly died from cancer in the middle of building a sugar mill in Haiti. Dominguez says he was 20 at the time, and he was subsequently scammed out of $100,000 by two ruthless Miami bankers who refused to give him the $14m loan his father had secured before dying. 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The Guardian
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The Independent
13 hours ago
- The Independent
Ex-footballer Jay Emmanuel-Thomas jailed over £600,000 cannabis smuggling plot
A former Arsenal academy footballer had a 'catastrophic error of judgment' when he engaged in a £600,000 drug smuggling plot while he was out of contract. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was arrested after officers from the National Crime Agency seized cannabis as it was being brought through Stansted Airport by his girlfriend and her friend. Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex previously heard how the women, whom Emmanuel-Thomas recruited, believed they were importing gold. Yet Border Force officers detected roughly 60kg (132lb) of the drug in two suitcases, which had arrived in the UK from Bangkok, Thailand, via Dubai. The 34-year-old footballer, of Cardwell Road in Gourock, Inverclyde, was arrested in the town in September 2024. He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis between July 1 2024 and September 2 2024. Emmanuel-Thomas was sacked by Scottish Championship side Greenock Morton after his arrest last year. Prosecutor David Josse KC told Chelmsford Crown Court the 'interception' of the two women – Emmanuel-Thomas's girlfriend Yasmin Piotrowska and her friend Rosie Rowland – happened at the airport. He said it 'became apparent this defendant, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, had been involved in their recruitment to travel to Thailand '. He noted Emmanuel-Thomas 'had played a few games, 11 in total, for a club in Thailand'. The barrister said Emmanuel-Thomas had 'some awareness and understanding of the scale of the operation' and was acting in an 'operational management function' in the plot. He pointed out the defendant's 'relationship with Ms Piotrowska' when describing the recruitment of the two women. The footballer, whose former clubs include Ipswich, Bristol City, QPR, Livingston, Aberdeen and Thai side PTT Rayong, was sentenced on Thursday. The bearded defendant wore a grey suit jacket and black shirt, with his long hair swept back as he listened to proceedings from the secure dock. Ms Piotrowska sat in the public gallery and wept for much of the hearing. Alex Rose, for Emmanuel-Thomas, said: 'The financial gain in this case for Mr Emmanuel-Thomas was £5,000.' Mr Rose said the defendant was a father-of-two and had made a 'catastrophic error of judgment'. He said a 'period of being out of contract led to very significant financial hard times' and he 'succumbed to temptation'. 'Although he had previously experienced periods of being in between contracts or – putting it another way – being unemployed as a footballer, they had largely been on the back of fairly lucrative long-term contracts,' said Mr Rose. He said the 'situation was rather different in the background to this'. 'Having been out of contract prior to signing for Greenock Morton, he had a brief contract with Kidderminster Harriers but that was very much a short-term contract, almost to try to assist someone he had a good relationship with,' he said. Mr Rose continued: 'His football career is finished and that's something he has brought entirely on himself. 'It's a devastating blow for somebody who had such promise and such an impressive football career.' Judge Alexander Mills, jailing Emmanuel-Thomas for four years, said: 'It's through your own action that you will no longer be known for playing professional football. 'You will be known as a criminal. A professional footballer who threw it all away.' The judge said Emmanuel-Thomas had played five games for Greenock Morton and was on a £600 per week contract at the time of the incident. He said the defendant 'recruited' his girlfriend and her friend and was 'essentially turning the importation of cannabis into an all-expenses paid holiday in the Far East', arranging business class flights, hotel costs and discussing in messages how to maximise their time on the Thai island of Ko Samui. Emmanuel-Thomas looked straight ahead as the judge read out his sentence. He nodded towards the public gallery as he was led to the cells. Ms Piotrowska, 33, of Purves Road, Kensal Rise, north-west London, and Ms Rowland, 29, of Southend Road, Chelmsford, Essex, denied the charge and at an earlier hearing prosecutors offered no evidence in their case. Mr Josse said at an earlier hearing that the women 'said they thought they were importing gold not cannabis', and the judge directed that not guilty verdicts be recorded for them.
