A BRITISH tourist could face the death penalty in Thailand for allegedly attempting to smuggle a suitcase full of crystal meth out of the country.
George Wilson, 23, is appearing in court on Wednesday charged with trying to take 9.15kg of methamphetamine out of Bangkok’s international airport.
Asia Pacific Press via ViralPressThe Brit was caught with over 9 kgs of crystal meth hidden in his suitcase[/caption]
Asia Pacific Press via ViralPressHe insisted he didn’t know what was in his luggage[/caption]
Asia Pacific Press via ViralPressThe drugs were hidden under bags of Chinese tea[/caption]
Asia Pacific Press via ViralPressThe 23-year-old said he was given the suitcase by another Brit named ‘Snoopy’[/caption]
Cops swooped on a hotel in the Thai capital’s red-light area after tracking a drug gang’s movements.
A video shot by officers at the scene showed them detaining a baby-faced British man and asking him what was in his bag.
He replied, “I don’t know,” as the police opened the case and looked under a pair of flip-flops and a white towel.
They found ten bags of Chinese tea, which concealed what appeared to be drugs.
The Brit insisted, “I don’t know what it is,” but he was arrested after the officers opened the bags and performed a test to prove the drug was methamphetamine.
Wilson, of High Wycombe, Bucks, who told officers he had been in Thailand for two weeks, was then photographed in handcuffs with eight Thai cops next to him.
Lieutenant Colonel Noppha Thongbo, from the Lumpini district station in Bangkok, said: “He is currently in police custody and will be taken to the Bangkok South Criminal Court for detention in prison.”
The police said Wilson had told them he had been given a pink suitcase by another Brit known as Snoopy.
He asked him to take it through Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport to another country where an associate would meet him.
But officers said they had been tracking the suspects for a number of days and pounced when CCTV from the hotel showed the drugs had been delivered.
They said the crystal meth, known locally as ‘Ice’, is thought to have been produced in drugs labs in Myanmar before being transported to Thailand for international distribution.
Colonel Siranawitcha Intorn, of the Crime Suppression Division, added: “The amount of drugs seized was very large.”
Under Thai law, importing or exporting Category 1 narcotics such as methamphetamine carries the death penalty, although it is rarely used.
It comes after teenage drug mule suspect Bella Culley is fighting for her release after she was caught with £200,000 worth of drugs in Georgia on a flight from Thailand in May.
The 19-year-old, who is also pregnant, told a court in Tbilisi she was tortured into trafficking the drugs.
While mum Cameron Bradford, 21, was detained at Munich Airport for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her bags on a flight from Thailand.