12-08-2025
Ex-EPL star Stam jailed for seven years over £48m cocaine haul
KUALA LUMPUR: Once a title winner in the Netherlands and a Premier League regular, Ronnie Stam is now behind bars after being found guilty of drug smuggling on an industrial scale.
According to SUN UK, the ex-Wigan Athletic defender, 41, was part of a gang plotting to flood the Netherlands with more than two tonnes of cocaine - a haul with a street value of £48.6million.
Prosecutors had demanded 13 years, calling him a "major player" in the Dutch criminal underworld.
But a court cleared him of two of the most serious charges and instead handed down a seven-year jail term.
Stam was convicted of trafficking 724 kilos of cocaine and MDMA, and for possessing nitrous oxide or "laughing gas".
He at first protested his innocence, insisting: "It was stupid to go along with those guys… but I had nothing to do with those big batches of cocaine and nothing to do with setting up lines."
But he later admitted helping smuggle 20 kilos of cocaine from Brazil to Frankfurt - a consignment intercepted in Chile before reaching Rotterdam.
Police, who had hacked an encrypted messaging service, swooped on six homes and a camper van, arresting Stam's parents, brother and girlfriend. Officers found £85,000 in cash and later ordered the ex-footballer to repay £1.47million in criminal profits.
Stam's fall from grace is stark.
A Dutch champion with Steve McClaren's FC Twente in 2010, he joined Wigan that summer, making 73 appearances before missing their 2013 FA Cup final triumph over Manchester City with a broken leg.
