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Ex-Arsenal Player Pleads Guilty to Drug Smuggling Plot
Former Arsenal player Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has pleaded guilty to involvement in an attempt to smuggle cannabis into the UK from Thailand.
Emmanuel-Thomas was arrested in September after suitcases containing 60kg of cannabis, estimated to be worth £600,000 ($805,920) were found arriving at London Stansted Airport off a flight from Bangkok.
The forward initially denied charges at a magistrates hearing in Carlisle, before changing to a guilty plea at Chelmsford Crown Court in May.
Emmanuel-Thomas, who captained Arsenal to FA Youth Cup glory in 2009, was playing for Scottish Championship club Greenock Morton at the time of his arrest. But his contract there was terminated once police charges, which relate to a period from July 1 to September 2 last year, were filed.
A sentence will be given at Chelmsford Crown Court at a later date, but the maximum prison sentence for importing cannabis into the UK is 14 years.
Two others arrested have had the cases against them dropped by the prosecution after the evidence against them was discontinued following analysis of Emmanuel-Thomas’s phone.
They were his girlfriend and her friend, who were offered £2,500 and an all expenses paid trip to Thailand to collect the suitcases containing the cannabis. Emmanuel-Thomas is reported by BBC Sport to have “duped” them, while acting as the go-between for criminals in the UK and Thailand.
Emmanuel-Thomas, now 34, made five first-team appearances for Arsenal between 2009 and 2011.
He left the Gunners permanently for Ipswich Town in 2011 and played regularly at Championship and League One level for several seasons, having joined Bristol City in 2013.
Emmanuel-Thomas’s career stalled upon joining Queens Park Rangers on a free transfer in 2015, which eventually resulted in several months without a club in the second half of 2018 and a transfer to Thai club PTT Rayong the following year.
He returned to the UK to play in Scotland, before a spell in India and a drop into England’s non-league with Kidderminster Harriers, before joining Greenock Morton less than two months before his arrest and charge last summer.
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Jamie Spencer is a writer and editor for SI FC. Jamie grew up in Manchester, England, in the 1990s and fell in love with the game at the same time as the Premier League was taking off. With more than a decade of experience behind him in sports media, he specializes in Manchester United and the overall Premier League, still living in England’s north-west soccer hotbed. Jamie is also an expert on the women’s game and enjoys old school nostalgia, telling stories from soccer’s rich history and culture.