From Arsenal broth to drug smuggling

As a football player, Jay Emanuel-Thomas seemed intended for greatness. But the sentence for drug smuggling has left his career and reputation at Tatters. How did things go so dramatically for a player who once tilted to the top?

Helped by the legendary Arsenal Ansse Wenger manager as a football player who could “play everywhere,” Emanuel-Thomas was early as elite potential.

The impressive, technically gifted and surprisingly nimble, the attacker seemed to have the world at his feet.

But a career, which promised so much on Arsenal, fell apart and saw him spend years flying between the second and third rows of English football.

In 2020, he moved to play in Scotland and still spent his trade north of the border when he was arrested at his home in Gouro, near Glasgow on September 18.

Sixteen days earlier, border force staff had stopped two women at London Airport and found drugs in their cases.

It was not a minor transportation; They stared at cannabis with a street value of £ 600,000.

How did you get there? The evidence soon led to detectives to Emanuel-Thomas.

You go back for a decade and a half and things were very different.

This is on May 26, 2009, and the last batch of talents of the Arsenal Academy can hardly contain its excitement.

The young prospects, including Jack Wilsher and Francis Cookelin, have just won the FA Youth Cup.

In particular, a player stood out: their 16-year-old Captain Emmanuel-Thomas, who has scored in every round of the race.

“These young men really have a very bright future,” noted CommentatorS

But although he continued to make five appearances from the first team, it was not at all for Emanuel-Thomas.

He was sent to several loans before leaving the club in North London for the city of Ipswich.

It was a move that excited the supporters in Suffolk who wanted to see what the former Arsenal old older could produce.

However, 71 games and eight goals later, Emanuel-Thomas did not hopes for Mark's fans, and he moved to Bristol City in a player exchange deal.

Here he helped Robins provide a championship promotion and became something like a cult character, scoring 21 goals in his first season.

There was a move to Queens Park Rangers, with subsequent loan spells at MK DONS and Gillingham.

But in 2019, Emanuel-Thomas accepted a Thailand-based team transfer that would change the course of his life.

He is believed to have been tempted in the underworld of drugs while playing for PTT Rayong, a club that folds in the same year.

Despite the later, he moved to the Indian country and several Scottish outfits, including Aberdeen, Emanuel-Thomas has never shook himself from the criminal relationships he has implemented.

By the time he took a six -month contract at Greenock Morton, a 40 -minute drive from Glasgow, the game was almost up.

As he Arranged for them vs. Queens Park On September 14, he would surely know that the law is about to catch up with him.

The women arrested in Stanstead were his 33-year-old girlfriend Yasmin Piotrovska and her friend Rosie Rowland, 28 years old.

Until then, Emanuel Thomas appeared in court accused of organizing the drug import attempt and was fired by his club.

Detectives have found that he has deceived Mrs. Piotrowska, from northwest London and Mrs. Rowland of Chelmsford, to travel to Thailand with a promise of £ 2500 in cash and a trip with all the expenses paid.

Their work? To bring two suitcases at home, anyone filled with what they were sure was the gold, he listened to the Chelmsford Crown Court.

They flew in a business class from Bangkok, landing in Essex via Dubai.

Unknown to them, they smuggled in cannabis with a street value of 600,000 British pounds, vacuum in four cases.

The couple was suspended and arrested by border force officials before being charged with drug import crimes.

With the couple in custody, and Emanuel-Thomas later stayed, police examined how drugs had reached the United Kingdom.

They soon found that the player was a mediator between suppliers in Thailand and dealers in the UK, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

With the encouragement of the football player, the women had also made an almost identical trip in July, receiving similar promises of money and a lavish vacation.

On the way to custody, Emanuel-Thomas even told NCA employees, “I'm just sorry for the girls.”

His First hearing in September He was told that he had done “extensive research” in flights and instructions, including which airports went to women.

David Phillips, a NCA senior investigator, said “organized criminals like Emanuel-Thomas” uses persuasion and payment to make people do their dirty work.

“But the risk of catching is very tall and just not worth it,” he added.

During several court appearances, Emanuel-Thomas by Cardwell Road, Grock, greatly denied trying to import cannabis.

However, he changed his request to guilty in early May and restrictions on reporting this are rose on WednesdayS

The allegations against Mrs. Piotrowska and Mrs. Rowland had dropped after prosecutors revealed that they had been lured by Emmanuel-Thomas.

This was followed by what David Joss KC described as a “very thorough investigation”.

Emanuel-Thomas appeared through a video connection from HMP Chelmsford at his last court hearing.

When he returns to court for a sentence, on a date that still needs to be confirmed, this will not be his first time in the spotlight.

But it will be for many different reasons for the day he lifted this trophy in 2009.