Baggage claim! Irish drug mule jailed after 22.5m baht stash found
Woman smuggling cannabis into Norway says she was 'just stopping over' on way home
An Irish woman has been jailed in Norway after being caught red-handed smuggling nearly 30 kilogrammes of cannabis, worth an estimated 600,000 euros (22.5 million baht), from Thailand in two bulging suitcases. Other news outlets reported the stash was 41.7 kilos of weed.
Jamie Mahon from Moneymore in Drogheda, Co Louth, was arrested at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport on January 9 this year after customs officials flagged her luggage during an X-ray scan.
The 32 year old, who had just stepped off a flight from Bangkok, was stopped with two large suitcases stuffed with cannabis, a haul police later described as a “serious violation” due to its sheer volume.
An exclusive image shows Mahon at Bangkok airport collecting the suitcases while talking on her mobile, just moments before boarding the drug run flight to Norway.
According to court documents, Mahon claimed the bags had been handed to her by someone in Thailand and insisted she “didn’t know what was inside.” She also told police she was merely stopping in Norway en route to Ireland.
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But the judge wasn’t buying it. The court found her guilty after she admitted to the charge, describing her as a “courier whose activity is crucial for bringing the drug to the market” and warning that such traffickers must be “dealt with strictly.”
The ruling stated: “Based on this, the court has found it proven that the accused has behaved as described in the charges, and that she has acted intentionally.”
Mahon was handed a three-year prison sentence, with 92 days already served to be deducted, the Irish Mirror reported.
The bust is believed to have delivered a major blow to an Irish organised crime gang headed by two on-the-run brothers: one in Dubai, the other believed to be in Thailand. Warrants for their arrest have already been issued, though they remain at large.
Sources say the Drogheda-bound drugs were meant to fund ongoing turf warfare between the brothers’ gang and associates of paralysed mob boss Owen Maguire, a feud that has already claimed multiple lives.
Maguire, who was shot multiple times by notorious hitman Robbie Lawlor in 2018, survived but was left paralysed and wheelchair-bound. Lawlor was later killed in Belfast in 2020, having been the main suspect in the gruesome murder and dismemberment of 17 year old Keane Mulready-Woods.
The teenager’s remains were discovered in bin bags and a burnt-out car in one of the most shocking killings in Irish gangland history.
More recently, gang associates 30 year old Paul Crosby, and 52 year old Gerard “Rocky” Cruise, were reportedly jailed for facilitating the teen’s murder, receiving ten and seven years respectively.
Mahon’s conviction adds another dark chapter to the saga, this time, from a Norwegian courtroom.
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