Student jailed for smuggling drugs worth £1m
06.09.07
A Nigerian student who was caught trying to smuggle cocaine worth about £1m into the UK via Aberdeen Airport was jailed for 6 years yesterday. Solomon Ukpabi, 24, was stopped by customs officers on April 1. He had arrived at the airport on an early-morning flight from Amsterdam having flown to Holland from Lagos, Nigeria. 8lbs of the drug was found concealed in his luggage. He was to have been paid £3,000 for making the trip.
Mr. Ukpabi was a hotel management student at West London College. Defending, Jonathan Crowe QC said he was to have had his studies paid for by a rich uncle in exchange for land in Nigeria from his parents, but the arrangement fell through. He had tried unsuccessfully to find part-time work in London, when some fellow Nigerians had offered him the chance to earn money by flying to Nigeria to pick up drugs and bring them back to Scotland.
Mr. Crowe said: 'It was a combination of his naivety, foolishness and decision to try to make money quickly to solve financial difficulties. He now realises the impact drugs have on society as a whole because he has seen this first hand in custody.'
Mr. Ukpabi admitted being concerned in the supply of drugs. He was jailed at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday and has also been served with a deportation notice. The judge, Lord Menzies, said he would have been facing 9 years in jail if he had not admitted the offence at the earliest opportunity.
This is the second conviction and long jail sentence for drug smugglers in two months following action by HMRC officers at Aberdeen Airport. Egbuta Ibe, 36, was sentenced to 6 years in jail at the High Court in Aberdeen in July. Mr. Ibe, from Abia State, Nigeria, attempted to smuggle £160,000 of cocaine into the UK via the airport.
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