Leeds dad smuggled £2.3 million of cannabis in suitcases from Bangkok with his children
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Nathaniel Benson was found with the haul, thought to have a street value of up to £2.3 million, when he landed at Heathrow on September 18. More than 160 packages of the drug were found by Border Force officials spread across five suitcases.
He admitted a charge of importing a Class B drug and was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in West London this morning. He received 28 months’ jail.
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Hide AdBenson, 45, was with his partner and two children, aged four and five, when he touched down at Terminal 2 at the London airport from Thailand. Two cases were in his name, two in his partner’s, and the final case in one of the youngster’s.
X-ray scans showed the cases were packed with the cannabis. The total weight of the cases came to 101 kgs, but once the shrink-wrap packaging was removed, the total weight of the drugs came to 79 kgs.
It was estimated that drugs could have had a street value up to £2,373,000. Benson gave a no-comment interview to police but had said he was responsible solely for packing the cases.


His partner, a 41-year-old woman from Harrogate, has since been questioned and bailed but no decision has been made yet to prosecute her.
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Hide AdThe court also heard that Benson’s passport showed that he made a previous trip to Thailand in July.
Benson, of Southend Avenue, Bramley, has a previous conviction for dealing in Class A drugs from 2009, and has convictions for violence.
Mitigating, Ian Hudson said that Benson had entered an early guilty plea but was “aware that custody was inevitable.”
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Hide AdJudge Lindsey Rose told Benson, who appeared in court via video link from HMP Wormwood Scrubs in London: “It’s clear you were aware of what you were doing. You are not somebody who is a chief organiser - you are treated effectively as being disposable by those organising such operations.
“But you had some understanding what you were getting yourself into. You volunteered no doubt to make money. You took a huge risk in carrying such huge amounts of cannabis for financial gain.
“People who come before these courts for offences of this nature can expect a custodial sentence.”