A former Arsenal academy footballer has been jailed for four years after orchestrating a £600,000 cannabis smuggling operation that saw him recruit his girlfriend and her friend to unknowingly transport drugs from Thailand, with a judge declaring his promising career now overshadowed by criminality.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, 34, was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to fraudulent evasion of cannabis importation prohibitions between July and September 2024. The striker, who had spells at clubs including Ipswich, Bristol City, QPR, Aberdeen, and Greenock Morton, will serve a minimum of 19 months in custody.
Judge Alexander Mills delivered a scathing assessment of the defendant’s actions, stating, “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 court heard that Emmanuel-Thomas recruited his girlfriend, Yasmin Piotrowska, and her friend Rosie Rowland to travel to Thailand, with the women believing they were importing gold rather than cannabis. Border Force officers at Stansted Airport detected approximately 60kg (132lb) of the drug in two suitcases that had arrived from Bangkok via Dubai.
Prosecutor David Josse KC told the court that 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 noted that the defendant “had played a few games, 11 in total, for a club in Thailand” and had used his “relationship with Ms Piotrowska” in recruiting the two women.
Defence barrister Alex Rose revealed that Emmanuel-Thomas’s financial gain from the operation was just £5,000, describing his client’s actions as a “catastrophic error of judgement” brought about by financial hardship.
“A period of being out of contract led to very significant financial hard times, and he succumbed to temptation,” Rose explained. “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.”
Rose stated that “the situation was rather different in the background to this,” noting that Emmanuel-Thomas had only a brief contract with Kidderminster Harriers before signing with Greenock Morton, where he was earning £600 per week when arrested.
“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,” the defence counsel added.
Judge Mills noted that Emmanuel-Thomas had “essentially turned the importation of cannabis into an all-expenses-paid holiday in the Far East,” arranging business class flights and hotel costs while discussing in messages how to maximise time on the Thai island of Ko Samui.
The footballer, wearing a grey suit jacket and black shirt with his long hair swept back, listened to proceedings from the secure dock and nodded toward the public gallery as he was led to the cells. His girlfriend, Piotrowska, sat in the public gallery and wept throughout much of the hearing.
Emmanuel-Thomas was arrested in Gourock, Scotland, in September 2024 while playing for Greenock Morton, who subsequently sacked him. The 34-year-old striker, a product of Arsenal’s academy system, had also played for clubs including Gillingham and Thai side PTT Rayong during his career.
Both Piotrowska, 33, of northwest London, and Rowland, 29, of Chelmsford, Essex, denied the charges. Prosecutors offered no evidence against them after the court accepted they “thought they were importing gold, not cannabis,” and not guilty verdicts were recorded.
Source: Sky Sports
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