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Nine U.S. citizens have been arrested in London for smuggling large quantities of cannabis from Los Angeles to the UK, British officials announced on Jan. 17.
The unsuccessful weed shipments were seized over the course of one week, beginning on Jan. 10, followed by another on Friday, two more on Saturday, four on Sunday and the last one on Monday, Jan. 16.
Altogether, the nine Americans flew nearly 750 pounds of cannabis from LAX to Heathrow Airport, according to British authorities.
They Checked Their Bags With All That Cannabis?
The pot passengers, five women and four men had apparently packed the weed in their suitcases and then checked them. That is to say, they were each carrying around 80 pounds of marijuana in their respective luggage. Anyone with a functioning olfactory system would surely have sniffed out the cannabis cargo. Also, it seems the nine travelers were not communicating with each other as they got picked off one by one upon arrival at Heathrow. Perhaps they didn’t have roaming on their cell phones?
And now the British National Crime Agency wants to know if they’re connected. How could they not be?
“We are working to understand how these seizures are connected, however, to get this many off the same route in such a short period of time is clearly very unusual,” National Crime Agency (NCA) senior investigating officer Darren Barr said in a statement.
“Drugs couriers face stiff sentences so I’d urge anyone considering getting involved in such ventures to think very carefully about the consequences,” he said.
All nine suspects, whose names were not released, have been charged with attempting to import class B drugs and are awaiting court hearings. In the UK, cannabis is classified as a Class B drug along with speed and ketamine. A Class B possession conviction can carry up to a 14-year sentence.
And judging from what NCA’s Darren Barr said, visiting London with hundreds of pounds of weed in tow could carry an even stiffer punishment.
Photo: Heathrow Airport by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash
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Image and article originally from www.benzinga.com. Read the original article here.