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A professional volleyball player who competes internationally for Canada’s women’s team has been jailed in Britain after arriving at London airport with a bag filled with vacuum-sealed cannabis.

Britain’s National Crime Agency said British border officers found 22-year-old Raekelle Powell with a suitcase filled with 19 kilos of marijuana after she landed at Heathrow airport on a flight from Toronto on September 20.

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When asked, he said he was paid $300 to carry the suitcase. The estimated street value of the drug in Britain is estimated at more than a million dollars.

Powell quickly pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to 15 months in prison at Isleworth Crown Court in London last week.

British officials said Powell was from Toronto. He studied high school in Brampton.

She plays volleyball as a spiker and is on Canada’s under-19 indoor volleyball team, which won the silver medal at the NORCECA Championships in 2018, upsetting favorites Cuba and finishing second behind the United States. NORCECA represents the North, Central American and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation.

Powell was arrested during a series of cannabis crossing attempts in London.

A lawsuit was filed against 11 people who attempted to smuggle 300 kilos of marijuana in two days at Heathrow and Gatwick, London’s two busiest airports.

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Three people were arrested on the Saturday when Powell arrived, and seven more the next day.

Two more Canadians were among those arrested. Charges are still before the courts against Christopher Duffell, 44, and Tania Fetherston, 51, who police allege arrived on a flight from Toronto with a connection to Copenhagen, carrying 30.7 kilos and 34.7 kilos of marijuana in their luggage.

This is a serious drug smuggling trend and British authorities have warned travelers, especially young people, not to carry luggage they have not put into the country.

Most of the traffickers came from Canada, the United States and Thailand, and most had no connections or relationships with others.

Organized crime groups with access to marijuana grown where it is legal smuggle it into countries where it is illegal and sell it at much higher prices.

Three times more cannabis has been seized in the UK so far in 2024 compared to the whole of 2023.

“These sentences should serve as a stark warning to anyone considering smuggling cannabis into the UK – you will be arrested, prosecuted and jailed,” NCA senior investigating officer Piers Phillips said in a written statement.

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“The gangs that carry out this trade have no concerns about the fate of the couriers they employ for drug smuggling. All they care about is maximizing profits and keeping their criminal enterprises sustainable.

“We continue to work with our partners at home and abroad, including Border Force, to disrupt this trade and destroy the business model used.”

Last month, another Canadian athlete made unpleasant headlines, but on a much larger scale.

Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding In the United States, he was named the boss of a multibillion-dollar transnational cocaine trafficking organization accused of moving large quantities of the drug from Colombia to Canada through Mexico and California, all the while protecting the operation with numerous unsolved murders, including in Canada.

Wedding remains a wanted fugitive.

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