From Arsenal prodigy to drugs smuggler

As a footballer, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas appeared destined for greatness. However a drug-smuggling conviction has left his profession and repute in tatters. How did issues unravel so dramatically for a participant as soon as tipped for the highest?

Hailed by legendary Arsenal supervisor Arsene Wenger as a footballer who might “play anyplace”, Emmanuel-Thomas was marked out early on as having elite potential.

Imposing, technically gifted and surprisingly agile, the striker appeared to have the world at his toes.

However a profession that promised a lot at Arsenal faltered and noticed him spend years flitting between the second and third tiers of English soccer.

In 2020 he moved to play in Scotland and was nonetheless plying his commerce north of the border when, on 18 September, he was arrested at his dwelling in Gourock, close to Glasgow.

Sixteen days earlier, Border Drive officers had stopped two ladies at London Stansted Airport and located medication of their circumstances.

It was not a minor haul; they have been gazing hashish with a road worth of £600,000.

How did it get there? The proof quickly led detectives to Emmanuel-Thomas.

Wind again a decade and a half, and issues have been very totally different.

It’s 26 Could 2009, and Arsenal’s newest batch of academy abilities can barely include their pleasure.

The younger prospects, together with Jack Wilshere and Francis Coquelin, have simply gained the FA Youth Cup.

One participant specifically has stood out: their 16-year-old captain, Emmanuel-Thomas, who has scored in each spherical of the competitors.

“These younger males have a really vibrant future certainly,” remarked one commentator.

However regardless of occurring to make 5 first-team appearances, it was not fairly to be for Emmanuel-Thomas.

He was shipped out on a number of loans earlier than leaving the north London membership for Ipswich City.

It was a transfer that excited supporters in Suffolk, who have been eager to see what the previous Arsenal starlet might produce.

Nonetheless, 71 video games and eight objectives later, Emmanuel-Thomas had not fairly made the mark followers hoped for, and he moved to Bristol Metropolis in a participant trade deal.

Right here, he helped the Robins safe promotion to the Championship and have become one thing of a cult hero, scoring 21 objectives in his first season.

A transfer to Queens Park Rangers adopted, with subsequent mortgage spells at MK Dons and Gillingham.

However in 2019, Emmanuel-Thomas accepted a switch to a Thai-based crew that may alter the course of his life.

It’s believed he was tempted into the nation’s medication underworld whereas enjoying for PTT Rayong, a membership that folded in the identical 12 months.

Regardless of later strikes to an Indian facet and several other Scottish outfits, together with Aberdeen, Emmanuel-Thomas by no means shook off the felony connections he made.

By the point he took a six-month contract at Greenock Morton, a 40-minute drive from Glasgow, the sport was nearly up.

As he lined up for them in opposition to Queens Park on 14 September, he would have certainly identified the regulation was about to meet up with him.

The ladies arrested at Stansted have been his 33-year-old girlfriend, Yasmin Piotrowska, and her buddy Rosie Rowland, 28.

Emmanuel Thomas, by then 33, appeared in court docket charged with orchestrating the tried importation of medication, and was sacked by his membership.

Detectives found he had duped Ms Piotrowska, from north-west London, and Ms Rowland, from Chelmsford, into travelling to Thailand with the promise of £2,500 in money and an all-expenses-paid journey.

Their job? To convey dwelling two suitcases every, full of what they have been assured was gold, Chelmsford Crown Courtroom heard.

They flew enterprise class from Bangkok, touchdown in Essex through Dubai.

Unknown to them, they have been smuggling in hashish with a road worth of £600,000, vacuum-packed contained in the 4 circumstances.

The pair have been stopped and arrested by Border Drive officers, earlier than being charged with drug importation offences.

With the pair in custody, and Emmanuel-Thomas later remanded, police probed how the medication made it to the UK.

They quickly discovered the participant was the middleman between suppliers in Thailand and sellers within the UK, in response to the Nationwide Crime Company (NCA).

With the footballer’s encouragement, the ladies had additionally made a near-identical journey in July, having been made comparable guarantees of money and a lavish vacation.

On his approach to custody, Emmanuel-Thomas even informed NCA officers: “I simply really feel sorry for the ladies.”

His first court docket listening to in September was informed he carried out “in depth analysis” into flights and instructions, together with which airports the ladies had been going to.

David Philips, a senior NCA investigator, stated “organised criminals like Emmanuel-Thomas” used persuasion and cost to get individuals to do their soiled work.

“However the danger of getting caught may be very excessive and it merely is not value it,” he added.

Throughout a number of court docket appearances, Emmanuel-Thomas, of Cardwell Street, Gourock, strenuously denied making an attempt to import hashish.

Nonetheless, he modified his plea to responsible in the beginning of Could and restrictions on reporting this have been lifted on Wednesday.

Costs in opposition to each Ms Piotrowska and Ms Rowland have been dropped after the prosecution revealed they’d been tricked by Emmanuel-Thomas.

It adopted what David Josse KC described as a “very thorough investigation”.

Emmanuel-Thomas appeared through video hyperlink from HMP Chelmsford at his newest court docket listening to.

When he returns to court docket for sentencing, on a date nonetheless to be confirmed, it is not going to be his first time within the highlight.

However it will likely be for very totally different causes to the day he lifted that trophy aloft in 2009.