Belfast International Airport drug smuggler jailed
01.07.08
A man has been jailed for trying to smuggle the drugs in to Northern Ireland via Belfast International Airport. Johnston Fayiah, 26, who has an address in the Netherlands but a family in Nigeria, had swallowed 75 packets of pure cocaine. He was sentenced to 4½ years by Antrim Crown Court yesterday.
Mr Fayiah was stopped by customs officers because ‘he fitted the profile of a potential courier’ after coming off an Amsterdam flight on 5 January, 2008. When questioned he denied having any drugs, but agreed to have an X-ray. This showed the 300 grams of the Class A drug contained in the packets, with an estimated value of £100,000.
Despite this however, he claimed to know nothing about the drugs, before admitting that he had been approached ‘by a man called Dan’ who had paid him €500, with the promise of a further €1000 upon his return to Holland.
Judge Patrick Lynch told Mr Fayiah if any of the bags had burst, he would have been ‘a corpse rather than a prisoner’. He added that while Mr Fayiah had acted out of his ‘own personal greed - for narrow financial gain’, he was prepared to accept he was a courier, rather than a major player.
Add to: del.icio.us | Digg it | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
To book belfast airport hotel or belfast airport car parking at the lowest price click on these links to belfast airport car parking and belfast airport hotel price comparison pages.