Edinburgh student jailed for smuggling £100,000 worth of weed back from Barcelona

21-year-old University of Edinburgh art student Zixian Long was sentenced to jail yesterday at the Paisley Sheriff Court for attempting to import 10kg of cannabis into Scotland.

She was returning from a trip to Barcelona last New Year's Eve, but was stopped by Border Control at Glasgow Airport, who found 10 vacuum packed bags full of drugs tightly stuffed into her suitcase.

Detective Constable Alan Ferguson of Police Scotland’s Statement of Opinion Unit gave evidence in court, stating: "Ten packages were removed from the suitcase. Each bag contained 1kg approximately and there were 10kg in total. The total potential value would be £100,000 – that’s based on £10 per 
gram.

"This would be subdivided many times before it got to 1kg deals. Wholesale it would be £4,000 for each package, or £40,000 total."

Zixian is a student at the ECA

Long pled not guilty to charges of importing and dealing drugs, telling the court that she had agreed to bring the suitcase back to Scotland in exchange for a free holiday with her mother. She said that her mother had been approached online by a man offering to pay for the costs of the trip if the pair brought back the mysterious suitcase.

Nevertheless, the jury found Long to be guilty of all charges, and she was taken into custody, where she will remain until being sentenced next month.