More than 200 British nationals are currently detained overseas in cannabis smuggling cases linked to Thailand, according to new Foreign Office data. Recruits, often young people targeted via social media, are lured with promises of free holidays, easy money and "low risk" opportunities, sometimes being told their luggage contains clothes, gold or cash when it actually holds drugs. This matters because consular cases involving Britons arrested abroad for drug smuggling have more than quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, and penalties in some countries can include decades in prison, life sentences, whipping or the death penalty.

New drug smuggling cases rose from just over 80 in 2023 to more than 340 in 2025, with over 160 already recorded in 2026, mostly in Southeast Asia including Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos. Around 60 per cent of those affected since 2024 are aged 16 to 30. High-profile cases cited include Bella Culley, 19, who spent five months jailed in Georgia after being caught smuggling cannabis from Thailand, and Taylor Johnson, 20, sentenced to nearly ten years in a Turkish prison. Minister Stephen Doughty urged travellers never to carry items for others, as government-commissioned research found many young people underestimate the risks involved.