Thai chef who smuggled drugs in shoes loses plea

A Thai chef got his five years imprisonment upheld by the First Supreme Criminal Court of Appeal this week. The 27-year-old man has been sentenced earlier and was fined BD3,000 for attempting to smuggle narcotics from Thailand into the Kingdom by hiding it in his shoes and luggage.

The defendant has been arrested at Bahrain International Airport upon his arrival, coming from Thailand, on December 18, 2018. At the airport, he raised the suspicions of customs officers, who referred him to a detailed inspection. There, 13 plastic bags of narcotics were found professionally hidden in his luggage, while another bag was found stashed in his right shoe.

Laboratory examination proved that the seized substance was methamphetamine, a drug that is locally known as ‘Shabu’. In the interrogation, the defendant confessed that he was attempting to smuggle the substance into the Kingdom with the intention of selling and peddling it, according to Prosecutors. He added that he received it from a friend back in Thailand to deliver it to a woman here in return of BD750.

He was sentenced by the court earlier to the aforementioned sentence, but he appealed against the verdict. The court reviewed his appeal, rejected it and decided to uphold the previously announced judgement.