A drugs courier claimed to cops that he couldn’t smell his £130,000 illegal stash of cannabis hidden in his boot because he’d just had Covid.
Quynh Thai, an illegal immigrant, said he had been given cash by a man in a Manchester food store to drive the Toyota Prius to a property in Carlisle.
But police stopped the car on the M6, near to Carlisle, at around 12.30pm on 9th September.
“But upon approaching the car it accelerated away and was pursued for several minutes before being stopped,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Carlisle Crown Court.
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Thai was the sole occupant. Police noted a strong smell of cannabis, searched the vehicle and found 13kg of cannabis in vacuum-sealed packages within large laundry bags inside a large cardboard box in the boot.
This had an estimated potential street value of £130,000.
Thai, 40, was arrested and interviewed.
“He confirmed he had entered the UK in 2014, illegally. He has no fixed abode,” said Mr Rogerson.
“He was living in Manchester for about three weeks but couldn’t recall his address.
“He confirmed he had attended at an Asian food shop in Manchester when a man who he wouldn’t name offered him cash to drive a vehicle to an address in Carlisle and to hand over some items to somebody at that address.
“Mr Thai said he agreed to do that and was given a quantity of cash. He could not provide the details of the male. He had never driven the car before. He input a Carlisle address into his mobile phone and set off.
“He was asked detailed questions about what he thought was in the car, and he claimed he was told it was medicine and food.
“Asked if he had smelled the strong smell of cannabis, he said he had had Covid three weeks before and couldn’t smell it.
“When asked about the 13kg of cannabis in the car he said he was unaware as to what it was.”
Mr Rogerson added: “He did say he had stopped halfway through the journey and, out of curiosity, had looked inside the box. He still believed the contents were medicine and he confirmed he was under no form of duress to make the journey.”
Thai, a Vietnamese national of no fixed abode, admitted possessing the class B drug with intent to supply. This put him in breach of a suspended jail term he was given by Greater Manchester magistrates last November for cannabis production.
“The details of that concern the search of an address in the Bolton area,” said the prosecutor. “The police found a large part of the house had been given over to the production of cannabis plants — some 65 to 70 fully grown adult plants were recovered.”
Thai, living under a different name at that time, was found hiding in a nearby roof.
Mr Rogerson said Thai’s involvement in the latest offence was “significant” with him “having having an operational role within a chain of supply.
Thai’s lawyer, Tariq Khawam, said that despite initial denials he accepted the offending through his guilty plea.
“The main aim of the defendant is to return home (Vietnam) as soon as possible,” said Mr Khawam. “His immediate concerns are for his elderly parents, one of whom has lung disease and has no-one to assist her other than her elderly husband.”
The lawyer said of Thai’s latest crime: “As an illegal immigrant in this country, it places him in some jeopardy in terms of acquiring work and for those reasons, when offered to do a job, he will accept a job without necessarily making the requisite investigation.”
Mr Khawam told the court Thai had been paid £200 for the trip to Cumbria, saying: “I understand that money was recovered from him within the vehicle.
“Prior to that he had not been working for some time because he had experienced Covid and had not worked for the last three weeks.”
Jailing Thai for a total of 14 months, Judge Nicholas Barker said of his Cumbria offence: “You fled from the police initially. I am quite satisfied that was because you knew exactly what was in the car and you knew the reason why you were driving it.”
Judge Barker, who also ordered the cannabis to be forfeited and destroyed, added: “I am satisfied that you had some understanding of the scale of the operation; that you were performing an operational action within the chain to move significant quantities of cannabis.
“I do accept that that can be described as limited. I accept there were many above you in the chain that had been involved in the production and supply of the cannabis.”
