Talk about picking the wrong line. Two drug smugglers were recently busted with nearly $5 million worth of cocaine which they tried to transport in the shafts of a set of golf clubs in and out of the United Kingdom. I'm not sure whether this is the most brilliant or dumbest thing ever (the gig did last for nearly two years), but they eventually got caught by the police.
Here is the Evening Standard with the story on Tony Bayne and Taher Najmzadeh:
The couriers traveled with their golf equipment and took photographs of themselves holding their clubs as part of the ruse. Ahead of sentencing today, Judge Neil Sanders warned: "They are obviously facing substantial custodial sentences."
Prosecutor Catherine Pattison had told jurors: "The method deployed to use golf bags was rather ingenious because to an unsuspecting eye at customs or border control somebody ferrying a golf bag in or out would not cause any suspicion." She said the couriers "were not remotely interested in playing a round of golf".
I laughed at the "not remotely interested in playing a round of golf" part. Of course, with the millions of dollars they were set to make, they could have paid for lessons and rounds at any course in any country in the world.
Now they'll only be able to imagine what the lush fairways of courses they never had any intent of visiting look like. They were sentenced to jail for a combined total of 17 years.
