A BRIT facing a possible death penalty for allegedly smuggling crystal meth went to a £70,000-a-year boarding school, it has emerged.
George Wilson, 23, appeared in court today, charged with trying to take 9.15kg of methamphetamine out of Bangkok’s international airport.
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The baby-faced Brit man is said to belong to a family of a multimillionaire with links to the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.
Wilson, who was caught by Thai police yesterday with packs of Chinese tea concealing what appeared to be drugs, attended the prestigious Hurst Lodge School in Surrey.
It is one of the most expensive boarding schools in the country where fees can go up to £70,000 per academic year.
Sarah Ferguson, TV presenter Emma Forbes and actors Juliet Stephenson and Belinda Stewart-Wilson are among its former students.
The Brit grew up in luxury in Marlow in Berkshire, according to the Daily Mail.
A family friend told the publication: “It’s astonishing that someone from such a well-heeled background could find himself caught up in this – no one could believe it when we saw the reports of George’s arrest.”
According to the newspaper, George’s family wealth comes from a a hugely successful relative in the music industry who helped raise him from a young age.
A second source said: “George is a very well-brought-up and mild-mannered young man. You would never expect him to be in a situation like this.
“As far as I know he doesn’t even drink, let alone have any involvement in drugs.”
Cops swooped on a hotel in the Thai capital’s red-light area after tracking a drug gang’s movements.
A video shot by officers at the scene showed them detaining George and asking him what was in his bag.
He replied, “I don’t know,” as the police opened the case and looked under a pair of flip-flops and a white towel.
They found ten bags of Chinese tea, which concealed what appeared to be drugs.
The Brit insisted, “I don’t know what it is,” but he was arrested after the officers opened the bags and performed a test to prove the drug was methamphetamine.
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Wilson, of High Wycombe, Bucks, who told officers he had been in Thailand for two weeks, was then photographed in handcuffs with eight Thai cops next to him.
Lieutenant Colonel Noppha Thongbo, from the Lumpini district station in Bangkok, said: “He is currently in police custody and will be taken to the Bangkok South Criminal Court for detention in prison.”
The police said Wilson had told them he had been given a pink suitcase by another Brit known as Snoopy.
He asked him to take it through Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport to another country where an associate would meet him.
But officers said they had been tracking the suspects for a number of days and pounced when CCTV from the hotel showed the drugs had been delivered.
They said the crystal meth, known locally as ‘Ice’, is thought to have been produced in drugs labs in Myanmar before being transported to Thailand for international distribution.
Colonel Siranawitcha Intorn, of the Crime Suppression Division, added: “The amount of drugs seized was very large.”
Under Thai law, importing or exporting Category 1 narcotics such as methamphetamine carries the death penalty, although it is rarely used.
It comes after teenage drug mule suspect Bella Culley is fighting for her release after she was caught with £200,000 worth of drugs in Georgia on a flight from Thailand in May.
The 19-year-old, who is also pregnant, told a court in Tbilisi she was tortured into trafficking the drugs.
While mum Cameron Bradford, 21, was detained at Munich Airport for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her bags on a flight from Thailand.
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