Vice reports on the rise of young american smugglers into the UK where premium prices will be paid for quality US cannabis
When Kiara Lanee Malone, a 31-year-old boutique sex shop owner from St Louis, Missouri, was stopped at London’s Heathrow airport after arriving on a flight from Los Angeles, border officials discovered one of her suitcases was stuffed with 27.5kg (around 60 pounds) of barely concealed weed worth around £1 million on Britain’s illegal drug market.
Malone told police that she was travelling to London to have cosmetic procedures and had been given the bags by someone else. But just a few weeks later she pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and will be sentenced next month.
It was an odd case. Smuggling large amounts of bulky cannabis in suitcases on flights is rare. Border officers at Heathrow are used to pulling people for carrying cocaine, not huge amounts of weed.
But people kept on being arrested after coming across the Atlantic with suitcases full of weed: a 23-year-old male model from New York, a 26-year-old photographer from California and a 29-year old former strip bar waitress from Texas.
Within a week of Malone being caught in January this year, another 10 US citizens, all travelling from LA with similarly large amounts of weed packed into suitcases, were picked up at Heathrow.
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https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7b4x4/cannabis-smuggling-americans-uk
