Brit ‘drug mule’ jailed for 9 years after being caught on camera with suitcases stuffed with cannabis in £280k plot

A BRITISH drug mule has been jailed for nearly ten years in Turkey after a sniffer dog detected £300,000 of cannabis in his suitcase. Taylor Johnson, 20, was arrested at Istanbul airport as he caught a connecting flight to the UK on the way home from holiday in Thailand with his girlfriend. Drug mule Taylor Johnson, 20, has been jailed for nine years Credit: GoFundMe Customs officers found 19kg of cannabis in 17 black, vacuum-packed bags. Johnson said he had agreed to bring the bag back for a man back in the UK who had threatened him and claimed he had no idea it contained drugs. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! But a court in Istanbul has now jailed him for nine years and two months. He is serving his sentence in an overcrowded maximum security facility in the Asian half of the city as his lawyers begin the process of trying to get him transferred to a UK jail. His lawyer Bilgehan Berk told The Sun: “This is a very positive outcome for Taylor as the 19kg was considered a very large quantity. “The courts are generally inclined to hand down sentences of around 12 to 13 years, but when they’re this young, we usually manage to persuade them to impose a lower sentence. “He’ll stay some time here first, but then he’ll apply to be transferred to his home country. “There won’t be an appeal. Most read in The Sun “The prosecutor accepted that this was transit transportation of narcotics, rather than importation of narcotics into Turkey. “Had they been imported, the sentence would have started at 20 years.” Johnson had gone on holiday to Thailand with girlfriend Holly Cooper, 20, in April. He later told police that a man in the UK threatened him and demanded money after they had been involved in a road accident. On the last night of their holiday a Chinese man delivered a black suitcase to the couple’s hotel and Johnson brought it home with him. He managed to check it in at Bangkok without being detected but after they landed at Istanbul to catch their connecting light to England a drugs dog checked their luggage and found the drugs. A video exclusively obtained by The Sun showed the investigators opening the suitcase and finding the cannabis, worth around £280,000. Care worker Holly, of Coseley, and Johnson, of Wednesbury, both West Midlands, were arrested on suspicion of “manufacturing and trafficking narcotic or psychotropic substances” and taken to different prisons. No drugs were found in Holly’s bag and she was allowed to return to the UK and was today acquitted. Speaking through an interpreter, jobless Johnson told Gaziosmanpaşa criminal court at an earlier hearing: “The person involved in the accident had obtained my details. “About a week later, he began threatening both me and my family. He demanded £3,000 from me. “I told him I did not have the money. He then instructed me to travel to Thailand and bring back an item located there to the United Kingdom. “He told me it was a specially designed suitcase, so I did not know it contained drugs. “I then called my girlfriend and told her I was going to Thailand on holiday, asking whether she wanted to come with me. She agreed. Everyone paid for their own ticket. “Holly had absolutely no knowledge of what was happening. When we arrived in Thailand, the person who had sent me there called me one night from the UK. Holly was asleep at the time. “He told me that the suitcase was ready at the reception desk and that I needed to collect it. I picked up the suitcase. It was locked. “I then travelled to Turkey on my way back to the UK with that suitcase. I only learned what was inside the suitcase when I arrived in Turkey.” He added: “I apologise. Had I known that the suitcase contained drugs, I would never have done such a thing.” Holly said at the same hearing: “Taylor never told me that anyone had forced him to go to Thailand. “I genuinely believed we were there on holiday. We were only transiting through Turkey on our way back from Thailand. I had no knowledge of what was inside the suitcase.” Johnson is in Maltepe Prison with around 15 other Brits in a dormitory for 40 foreign inmates. Human rights inspectors have found severe overcrowding and poor living conditions at the jail. Wards designed for 28 inmates are crammed with 40, with some forced to sleep on the floor. The couple’s families back home in the UK were said to be “in bits” at the Midnight Express-style horror which their children found themselves in. The 1978 hit movie featured a student who was thrown in a Turkish hell-hole prison after trying to smuggle drugs out of the country. A family friend said at the time of Taylor’s arrest that he was a “good kid” who had been groomed by a trafficking gang to bring back the drugs. The friend added: “I have seen Taylor grow up. He’s a good, happy kid.“Everyone makes mistakes.” More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video. Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thesun and follow us on TikTok @TheSun. Comment now