Keira Borrett, 46 and based in Norfolk, has been jailed in UK for 18 months after 26kg of herbal cannabis was discovered in her luggage by customs officials at Heathrow. She had travelled from a holiday in Thailand, but her two heavy suitcases escaped exposure at Bangkok airport as well as the transit change-of-plane in the Middle East.
Born male but wishing to transition totally, Keira told the UK court she had met a man by chance in a Bangkok bar who had arranged for the suitcases to be delivered to her on her last day in Thailand. She was told, once back in UK, to report to an hotel where she would hand over the luggage and receive 10,000 sterling to enable some reassignment surgery. The haul had a street value of almost one million pounds.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) director, Alex Murray, said the case again illustrated the life-changing consequences of agreeing to act as a drugs mule. He had previously emphasized that drugs lords had largely abandoned sending contraband by mail from Thailand, because of high discovery rates, but were relying instead on naive holidaymakers willing to take the personal risk.
Published statistics suggest that detection of mule drugs is hit and miss. Thai Customs revealed that 187 cases of airport-seized drugs were reported in the last 10 months. Very few of these were actually cannabis-related as possession is not illegal (since 2022) and carriers are usually charged only with failure of obtain an exit licence which may result in a fine. Bangkok airport screeners are under pressure to clear luggage at busy times and some professionally-packed narcotics can be difficult to detect positively in a three second computerized check.
Discovery of illegal drugs at stopover destinations can be devastatingly more serious, as shown in the case of British teen Bella Culley currently on trial in ex-Soviet Georgia for cannabis exporting from Thailand. However, if passengers are transit and not clearing customs, they are unlikely to be searched or have their luggage screened. Keira Borrett appears to have been caught at Heathrow in a random check as she proceeded through immigration.
NCA said that 431 suspects had been arrested at London airports for cannabis-related offences last year with a total haul of almost 15,000 kgs. The magazine Holidays commented, “Unless the millions of air passengers worldwide are prepared for very lengthy luggage delays, both leaving and arriving, exposure of illicit substances will continue to be partly chance.” Keira Borrett at her trial said she had no idea what she was carrying.
