British holiday-makers still bringing cannabis from Thailand to UK via Singapore, despite warnings from UK officials

THAILAND: A customs official in Samui, Thailand, said last week that authorities detected a common drug-trafficking pattern between March and September last year, in which holidaymakers from the United Kingdom attempted to bring cannabis home via Singapore.

Even if cannabis can be purchased legally in Thailand, bringing it into the UK is against the law, and people who are found guilty may face a maximum of 14 years of jail time.

UK authorities have noted that organised crime groups have been behind the increase in smuggled cannabis, and that couriers have been recruited to bring it into the UK. When sold, their profits have been greater than if they had grown the cannabis on their own.

The Bangkok Post reported that Ruangyos Komoltham, the Samui Customs Office chief, said on January 28 that 406.6 kilos of dried cannabis were confiscated from tourists at Samui Airport over a seven-month period. Most of the suspects came from the UK.

The street price of the confiscated cannabis is as much as 4 million baht (around S$161,167).

One of the biggest busts occurred on March 12, 2025. When officials looked into the luggage of five people from the UK and one Malaysian traveling at the Samui airport, they were able to collect cannabis flowers that weighed nearly 144 kilos.

It is unknown whether the six individuals were traveling separately or together. After they were arrested, the dried cannabis was donated to Tha Chang Hospital in Tha Chang district of Surat Thani for medical use.

In August 2024, the British Embassy in Bangkok, together with the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), already issued a stern warning concerning smuggling cannabis from Thailand. NCA officers would actively be on the lookout for travelers who carried cannabis in their suitcases.

This followed a substantial uptick in the number of arrests in airports in the UK of travelers bringing in cannabis from Thailand. For example, from January to August of that year, there were 378 such arrests, of which 184 were connected to flights from Thailand.

On August 9, 2024, after 510 kilos of cannabis were found in 28 suitcases, 11 British travelers were arrested. They had all come from Thailand, though they had transited through Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. /TISG

Read also: Singaporean woman in Thailand mistakenly eats cannabis in noodle soup, says ‘It looked like kangkung’