“If the chance comes along I will right my wrongs”
Emma Slee and Jonathan Coles
20:31, 16 Jul 2025
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas previously played for Aberdeen(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
A former Bristol City and Arsenal footballer jailed over a £600k drug smuggling plot has spoken out for the first time after being released – and posted a video of himself driving a Tesla.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, 34, was sent down for four years in June for orchestrating the importation of a 60kg (132lb) haul.
But he has now been released on parole, after his time on remand was taken into account.
Posting on his personal Instagram today (Weds), Emmanuel-Thomas apologised to Greenock Morton, the club he was playing for when arrested.
The striker – who played for Bristol City and Ipswich Town, among other clubs – said: “Apologies to all affiliated with Greenock Morton.
“I let you guys down big time, hopefully you can forgive me. If the chance comes along I will right my wrongs but that will be up to the club, if it does not I wish you all the best and thank you.”
He also posted a video of himself driving a Tesla, getting his hair braided and training on a football pitch – seemingly in London.
Emmanuel-Thomas was arrested after a drugs haul was found at London Stansted Airport, Essex, on September 2
His girlfriend, 33-year-old Yasmin Piotrowska, and her friend, Rosie Rowland, 29, had been recruited to travel to Thailand and smuggle the cannabis back.
After landing in London on a flight from Bangkok, the pair were stopped and their suitcases searched – with officers finding a total of 60kg of cannabis in their four suitcases.
Piotrowska, of Kensal Green, London, and Rowland, of Chelmsford, Essex, were also charged with smuggling cannabis.
However, the women said they believed they were transporting gold, and they were acquitted.
It is believed Thomas, of Gourock, near Glasgow, was the intermediary between suppliers in Thailand and drug pushers in the UK.
The investigation revealed that with Thomas’s encouragement, the women had made a near identical trip – all expenses paid and a promised payment of £2,500 – a few months earlier in July.
On his way to custody after being arrested, he said unprompted: “I just feel sorry for the girls.”
Emmaneul-Thomas was once a prodigy at Arsenal, and tipped for the top.
But he slid down the footballing pyramid and was tempted into crime during “significant financial hard times” when out of contract, his barrister said during sentencing.