From Arsenal Prodigi to drug smugglers

As a football player, Jai Emmanuel-Thomas looked intended for size. But the condemnation of drug smuggling has left career and reputation in tatteries. How did things like this dramatically looked for the player sometimes overturned for the top?

Welcomed by the Legendary Arsenal Manager of Arsene Wenger as a football player who could “play”, Emmanuel-Thomas was marked early to have elite potential.

Changing, technically talented and surprisingly agile, the attacker seemed to have a world on his feet.

But the career who promised so much in Arsenal that she disintegrated and saw him spending years flying between the second and third level of English football.

2020 years moved to play in Scotland and still moved his trade north of the border when 18. September was arrested in his home in Gourk, near Glasgova.

Sixteen days earlier, the borderpower officers stopped two women at London Stansted Airport and found medication in their cases.

It was not a small exit; They looked at Canabis with a street value of 600,000 pounds.

How did he get there? Evidence soon led Detective Emmanuel-Thomas.

The wind back for a decade and a half, and things were very different.

It is 26. May 2009, and Arsenal’s latest package of academic talents barely contains its excitement.

The young prospects, including Jack Vilshere and Francis Cokelin, just won the Fa Cup for Youth.

Especially one player stood up: their 16-year-old captain, Emmanuel-Thomas, who achieved in each round of the competition.

“These young men really have a very bright future,” it was noted one commentator.

But despite it to take five performances for the first team, it was not exactly for Emmanuel-Thomas.

It was delivered to several loans before left the North London Club for Ipswich Town.

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

However, 71 matches and eight goals later, Emmanuel-Thomas was not entirely hoping the markers hoped and moved to the city of Bristol in playing a player.

He helped slaves here to provide promotion of championships and became something cultured heroes, scoring 21 goals in her first season.

The move in Queens Park Rangers followed, and the next loan in MK Dons and Gillingham.

But 2019. Emmanuel-Thomas accepted the transfer to the Thai team that will change the course of their life.

It is believed to be tempted in the world’s lower world while playing for PTT Rayong, the club that folded the same year.

Despite later, he moved to the Indian side and several Scottish clothes, including Aberdeen, Emmanuel-Thomas never brew the criminal connections he made.

By the time he took a six-month deal in Greenock Morton, a 40-minute drive from Glasgow, the game was over.

As he Lined up for them against Queens Park 14. September, he would surely know that the law will be recovered soon.

Women arrested at Stansted were his 33-year-old girl, Yasmin Pyotrovska and her friend Rosie Rowland, 28.

EMMANUEL Thomas, until then, appeared in court to orchestrating attempts to introduce drugs, and his club fired.

Detectives found that he stated Mrs. Pyotrovska, from Northwest London, and Mrs. Rowland, from Chelmsford, travel to Thailand with promises of £ 2,500 in cash and all costs paid for all costs.

Their job? If each suitcases for bringing two suitcases, filled with what they were sure was gold, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

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

They are unknown, they are smuggled in cannabis with a street value of £ 600,000, sucked in four cases.

The couple was stopped and arrested by the borderforce officers, before the accused of criminal offenses in drug imports.

With a couple in custody, and Emmanuel-Thomas was later received later, the police questioned how drugs arrived in the UK.

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

With the encouragement of football players, women also made an almost identical journey in July, which became similar to cash promises and a sumptuous holiday.

On the way to detention, Emmanuel-Thomas even said NCA officers: “I’m just sorry for the girls.”

His The first court hearing in September He was told that he has implemented a “extensive research” in flights and instructions, including the airports women went.

David Philips, Higher NCA researcher, said “organized criminals like Emmanuel-Thomas” used persuasion and payment so people could do their dirty work.

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

During several court performances, Emmanuel-Thomas, Cardwell Road, Goock, tiring denied an attempt to import cannabis.

However, he changed guilt on the blame at the beginning of May and restrictions in reporting Raised on Wednesday.

The accusations against Mrs. Pyotrovske and Ms Rowland fell after the Prosecution revealed that they were cheated by Emmanuel-Thomas.

What followed David Josse KC described as “a very detailed investigation”.

Emmanuel-Thomas appeared via a video link from HMP Chelmsford at your last court.

When returned to the court due to the sentence, on the date that is yet to be confirmed, it will not be the first time in the center of attention.

But it will be for very different reasons the day that trophy in 2009 was abolished. Years.