A court in the United Kingdom has jailed a man from Latvia for trafficking miraa from Nairobi, Kenya to the UK.
27-year old Nauris Ennitis was handed a 10-month jail sentence by the Warwick Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to illegal importation of 35 kilograms of miraa with a value of Sh 2,800, 000 (£20,000).
Miraa is a banned substance in the UK since 2014.
The suspect was arrested last year in September after he was stopped by a UK Border Agency officer when he arrived at the London City Airport on a flight from Zurich having originally travelled from Nairobi, Prosecutor Madhu Rai told the court.
Questioned what was in two big suitcases he was pushing, reports Daily Nation, he said he was in possession of khat (miraa).
“Yes, I’ve got khat in there. It’s all mine, no-one else has anything to do with it. I just wanted to make some money,” Rai told the court.
Upon opening the suitcases, miraa was found wrapped in clothes. Ennitis is reportedly said to have admitted to the officers that he was aware khat was banned in the UK but he needed to make money out of it.
He also revealed that a friend of his from Kenya had promised to pay him Sh140, 000 (£1,000) for successfully delivering the drug into the UK.
“I knew it was illegal, the only reason I was doing it was because I had lost my previous property, and I needed to get a new property,” he told the court via video link from his remand cell in prison.
“I feel remorse about it. It was a bad thing to do.”
In reading his sentence, the judge noted: “You were being paid for that. You needed money because you were in debt, but there are other ways of getting money.”
“You could have done more overtime, but you chose to go down this course. But it is clear you are showing great shame for what you did, and you were entirely honest when you were caught.
“I very much trust this is the last time the courts are troubled by you, and that you can go back to being a hard-working citizen of this country.”