Ex-Blues forward Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has pleaded guilty to his involvement in a plot to smuggle class B drugs into the UK.

The 34-year-old was arrested by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in September, Border Force officers having found 60kg of cannabis worth around £600,000 in suitcases on September 2nd after a flight had arrived at Stansted from Bangkok via Dubai. Having been arrested and remanded in custody, he was sacked by his most recent club, Greenock Morton.

Emmanuel-Thomas, of Cardwell Road, Gourock, near Glasgow, initially pleaded not guilty in October, but changed his plea at a hearing on May 7th when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court by video link from Chelmsford Prison with reporting restrictions lifted today.

He will be sentenced at a later date and is facing a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail.

Rosie Rowland, 28, of Southend Road, Chelmsford, and Yasmin Piotrowska, 33, of Purves Road in north-west London were also charged but will face no further action, the investigations into their involvement having ended following analysis of Emmanuel-Thomas's mobile phone.

Prosecutor David Josse KC said: “At all material times they maintained both before the events that led to the importation and after the events they said they thought they were importing gold not cannabis.”

Emmanuel-Thomas, nicknamed JET, joined the Blues for a fee of a reported £1.5 million from Arsenal, where he had come through their academy, in July 2011.

The Forest Gate-born attacker went on to make 43 starts and 32 sub appearances for the Blues, scoring nine times, before being made available by Mick McCarthy in the summer of 2013 along with Michael Chopra.

Emmanuel-Thomas moved onto Bristol City in a swap deal which saw Paul Anderson join Town and has had plenty of clubs since then.

In addition to the Robins, he played for QPR, MK Dons, Gillingham (loan), Thai side PTT Rayong, Livingston, Aberdeen, Jamshedpur in India and Kidderminster Harriers before joining Morton in the summer of 2024.

Photo: Action Images

Dissboyitfc added 16:10 - May 21 World beater to panel beater!!
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BuckieBlue added 16:27 - May 21 Wasted talent (Wenger raved about his potential him early in his career) and now a wasted life at the moment...people can change in prison.
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slade1 added 18:00 - May 21 Low life waste of space. The same as any one else involved with drugs. Growers, dealers, couriers, users etc
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slade1 added 18:24 - May 21 Esseeja, I cannot believe you have marked me down for what is the truth
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Suffolk_n_Proud added 18:30 - May 21 Slade1 - They have probably marked you down because of your ignorance. While a lot of people involved in drugs may be how you described them, there are some vulnerable people forced into that world, young people taken advantage of and used, in fact lots of different reasons. Hence your ignorance.
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bluebullet29l added 19:07 - May 21 Slade1...does that include Jason dozzell? Because it should. Brought shame to the club.
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blueasfook added 19:47 - May 21 Slade1 sounds like you need to chill out and smoke a doobie man
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RobsonWark added 22:52 - May 21 Drug dealers are the evil of this World. They destroy so many families for money. It's never going to end unless we take the Philippines President's approach and shoot anyone who deals drugs in the head.
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howsey51 added 05:47 - May 22 wow, few of the people on here have drunk the right-wing war on drugs kool-aid. People involved in drugs need to be managed as a health problem, not a criminal problem. In terms of cannabis many countries have legal access to cannabis and I think it would be a push to really argue that 14 years for involvement in something with minimal public health concern is proprtionate. The harm from different drugs are wildly different.

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WeWereZombies added 05:53 - May 22 RobsonWark - this case involves cannabis, not heroin or other opiates. Whilst it is true that cannabis get treated with other substances these days to make it addictive there are countries, such as Jamaica, where the decriminalisation of marijuana has so far proved to be an effective way of allowing small scale growers to make a living and to allow a community based market that prevents addictive weed being on sale. By the way, former Phillipines president Rodrigo Duterte is currently facing charges from the International Criminal Court: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/17/asia/philippines-duterte-mayor-icc-hurdles-in

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Bluearmy_81 added 08:05 - May 22 Staggering ignorance on here. Portugal decriminalised all drugs and has a much better record when it comes to drug treatment and harm from drugs than the UK does. The war on drugs is niave and idiotic
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bobble added 08:29 - May 22 Weed is hardly a Z class drug, never mind a C class...the drug laws are so antiquated and daft clearly....
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poet added 12:23 - May 22 There seems to be some misunderstanding on here with the difference between drug users and drug dealers. Drug dealers pray on the vulnerable, turn them into addicts and then take advantage of their plight by using them for other illegal means, turning their lives into a living hell. Anyone on here who even attempts to defend the indefensible dealer, needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

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rexron added 16:55 - May 22 Get hard
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Northstandveteran added 17:25 - May 22 Wrong drug rexron. That's Viagra.
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BlueSkies added 20:05 - May 22 Sorry RW, marked you down instead of up.
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algarvefan added 22:18 - May 22 Blue_army81 I live in Portugal and drugs for personal use are not criminalised (up to 10days supply), however importing and dealing are illegal and if caught you will be arrested and punished. The user is viewed as a patient not a criminal, the way forward in my opinion, there is no difference between alcohol or drugs as an addiction, although in my book alcohol causes more damage. Some views on here are from the dark ages.

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