From Arsenal Prodigy to Drugs of Smugglers star-news.press/wp

As a football player, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas looked intended for Majesty. But the conviction for smuggling drugs left his career and a reputation in the tattoos. How did things so dramatically unwrapped for a player who puts the player once for the top?

Hello with a legendary arsenal manager of Arsene Wenger as a football player who could “play anywhere”, Emmanuel-Thomas was marked early as elite potential.

Imposing, technically talented and surprisingly agile, the attacker appeared to have the world on his feet.

But a career who promised him so much in the arsenal and saw him spending years that flutter between the second and third level of English football.

2020 He moved to play in Scotland and still crossed his trade north of the border when 18. September was arrested in his home in Gorovo, near Glasgow.

Sixteen days earlier, the border forces border forces stopped two women on London Stansted Airport and found drugs in their cases.

It wasn’t a minor; They looked at cannabis with a street value of £ 600,000.

How did he get there? The evidence soon led Detective Emmanuela-Thomas.

The wind back a decade and a half, and things were very different.

It is 26. May 2009. years, and Arsenal’s latest series of academic talents barely contain their excitement.

Young prospects, including Jack Wilshere and Francis Coquelin, have just won the FA of the Youth Cup.

One player especially pointed out: their 16-year-old captain, Emmanuel-Thomas, who scored in every round of competition.

“These young men really have a very bright future,” I noted One commentator.

But in spite of what he takes place to make five players of the first team, it wasn’t exactly for Emmanuela-Thomas.

It was shipped to several loans before leaving the north London club for Ipswich Town.

It was a move that the excited supporters in the Suffolk, who wanted to see what the former Arsenal starlet could produce.

However, 71 games and eight goals later, Emmanuel-Thomas was not exactly done to hope Mark had hoped, and moved to Bristol City to the devget’s business.

Here he helped Robins a safe promotion at the championship and became a slightly cult hero, to reach 21 goals in his first season.

The transition to Queens Park Rangers followed, with subsequent loan yields in MK Dons and Gillingham.

But in 2019. Emmanuel-Thomas accepted the transfer in a team based on the Thai team that would change the course of his life.

It is believed to be tempted underground drugs in the country while playing for PTT Rayong, a club that bent the same year.

Despite later he moves to the Indian side and several Scottish suits, including Aberdeen, Emmanuel-Thomas never shaken the criminal connections he made.

By the time he took a six-month contract in Greetock Morton, 40 minutes drive from Glasgow, the game was almost upstairs.

As he lined up for them against Queens Park 14. September, he would surely be known that the law should have compensated.

Women arrested in Stansted were his 33-year-old girl, Yasmin Piotrowska and her friend Rosie Rowland, 28.

Emmanuel Thomas, until then 33, appeared in court accused of orchestrating drug import attempts, and was fired in his club.

Detectives were discovered, who suffocated Mrs. Piotrowsk, from northwestern London and Mrs. Rowland, from Chelmsford, in a trip to Thailand with a promise of £ 1800 in cash and passengers with all costs.

Their job? To bring the house two suitcases, filled with what they were sure he was gold, heard Chelmsford Crown Court.

They flew from a business class from Bangkok, landing in Essex via Dubai.

Unknown to them, they have been smuggled in cannabis with a street value of £ 600,000, a vacuum in four cases.

The couple were stopped and arrested by police officers border forces, before the indictees were charged with drug importation.

With steam in custody, and Emmanuel-Thomas later kept, the police questioned how medications were made in the UK.

Soon they found a player was an intermediary between suppliers in Thailand and Dealers in the UK, according to the National Criminal Agency (NCA).

With the encouragement of football players, women also made an almost identical journey in July, which are achieved similar promises of cash and sumptuous vacation.

On his way to custody, Emmanuel-Thomas even told NCA police officers: “I’m just sorry to girl.”

His First court in September It was said that he performed “extensive research” in flights and instructions, including which airports wanted.

David Philips, the Higher NCA investigator, said “organized criminals like Emmanuela-Thomas”, used convincing and payment to give people dirty works.

“But the risk of caught is very high and just not worth it,” he added.

During several orders of the court, Emmanuel-Thomas, Cardwell Road, Gorock, hardly denied the attempt to import cannabis.

However, he changed the plea of ​​guilt at the beginning of May and the restrictions on reporting raised on Wednesday.

Fees against and Mrs. Piotrowska and Mrs. Rowland were thrown after the Prosecution revealed that they were cheated by Emmanuel-Thomas.

Followed what David Josse KC described as a “very detailed investigation.”

Emmanuel-Thomas appeared via video link from HMP Chelmsford on his latest hearing court.

When he returns to the Court for Penalties, on the date that still need to be confirmed, it will not be the first time in the center of attention.

But it will be for very different reasons the day when in 2009. He raised that trophy.