Mother and daughter jailed for smuggling £200,000 of drugs into Scotland

A mother and daughter have been jailed after smuggling drugs worth around £200,000 into Scotland.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Xiaodan Wang, 51, of Duke Street in Glasgow, was arrested in possession of around 10 kilos of cannabis on December 30 2017, which she brought into the UK in sealed packages through Edinburgh Airport.

She told investigators she did not know the drugs, said to have an estimated street value of £100,000, were in her luggage.

The next day, her daughter Zixian Long, 21, who gave the same address to court, was detained by Border Force officials at Glasgow Airport as she attempted to smuggle the same amount of the drug in a suitcase in packages identical to her mother’s, the NCA said.

The two women were jailed a day apart.

NCA investigators found the pair had stayed in the same hotel in Barcelona, Spain, before flying back to the UK.

The agency discovered that in the months before the pair were arrested, Wang had made three other trips to Spain, returning into Glasgow or Prestwick Airports.

The NCA said she was jailed for 32 months at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday, having pleaded guilty to importing class B drugs at an earlier hearing.

Long was sentenced to two years behind bars a day earlier for the same offence as well as drug dealing, having been found guilty following a trial at Paisley Sheriff Court.

NCA Organised Crime Partnership (Scotland) operations manager John McGowan said: “Drug traffickers like Long and Wang are an important part of a chain that organised criminals rely upon to bring their products into the UK and generate profit.

“The profits they make from cannabis can be reinvested, sometimes into other forms organised crime.

“This is why we are determined to do all we can, with partners such as Border Force, to stop them in their tracks and disrupt their supply routes.”

Murdo MacMillan, head of Border Force Scotland, said: “The skills and expertise of our officers have prevented these drugs entering the UK and ending up on our streets.

“Drug trafficking fuels violence and exploitation which is why we work with partners from the National Crime Agency to do all we can to prevent drug smuggling and bring those responsible to justice.”