Why are so many Brits getting locked up abroad? Man who spent 18 years in infamous Thai prison speaks out

6 June 2025, 09:39 | Updated: 6 June 2025, 11:01

A man who spent 18 years in a Thai prison for smuggling has explained why so many young Brits are being targeted by gangs who groom them into becoming drug mules.

Jonathan Wheeler was issued a death sentence when he was caught smuggling 2kg of heroin worth £1m into Thailand in 1994 after being promised $10,000. 18 years later, he was freed from an infamous prison that “eats men alive”

In an interview with LBC, he has revealed what life was like on the inside one of the most feared jails in Asia, retelling one horrific incident of a man being attacked with a meat cleaver over a debt.

He has also revealed how criminal gangs target vulnerable individuals to carry their drugs across borders – which comes as a string of Brits are currently holed up in foreign prisons for this very reason.

He said gangs target British youngsters who are caught up in the ‘party lifestyle’ or ‘down on their luck’ with offers of huge sums of quick cash.

He said gangs are targeting people who are “young and foolish” – and urged them to “just go home” instead of getting caught up in a dark criminal underworld.

Read more: Three Brits face death penalty for ‘smuggling nearly 1kg of cocaine in Angel Delight sachets’ into Bali

Read more: Mother-of-one, 21, becomes latest Brit arrested for drug smuggling as she’s held in Munich returning from Thailand

Mr Wheeler was in his thirties, down and out in the UK after getting into gambling debt and a charge for drink driving.

But when the martial arts enthusiast arrived in Thailand in search of a fresh start, buying a ticket with funds from a motorbike he sold, everything changed.

“For me, it was like when you’re a kid to go to the fairgrounds and you got a load of pocket money and you could do what you want, go on any ride.”

Excited by the fast-paced life and greener pastures abroad, the then-34-year-old fell in with the wrong crowd. Soon, he would get caught smuggling two kilograms of White China Heroin from Bangkok to Taiwan.

“I wasn’t the usual decoy. They usually know you’re coming. It’s usually a police or a military conduit that’s given it and they know you’re coming anyway.”

He was later issued a death sentence by the Thai authorities.

‘It crushed your mind’

This felt “horrible at first”, but when Mr Wheeler heard from other prisoners caught with larger quantities of drugs then he was and were still alive, it gave him hope.

He remained hopeful could fight his sentence and get extradited with the help of the British government throughout his sentence.

“The only headf**** is not knowing when it’s going to finish because you just don’t know. There’s no number at the end. It’s too far away. But at least it’s not death,” he thought.

“You just have to get on with it because it just crushed your mind if you just keep thinking about it,” he added.

It would be another 18 years before Mr Wheeler was released from one of Thailand’s most infamous prisons – Bang Kwang – dubbed the “Big Tiger’ because it “eats men alive”.

He stayed in various cells, one a 300 yards by 60 communal room which was like a “shanty town”, with asbestos roofs in the sleeping quarter.

‘Totally clueless’

Luckily, Mr Wheeler was a “big fish in a small pool”, having had made a name for himself as a foreign boxer.

But he said Brits jailed within weeks of arriving in Thailand felt like “aliens on another planet”.

“I was lucky I could speak some of the Thai language, they were straight in the deep end. Really scary. They don’t know what’s happening. They’re totally clueless and have to fumble through it.”

And that can be a truly horrible experience in a dangerous prison like the Big Tiger.

In the most horrific incident, he saw an inmate hit another prisoner with a meat cleaver first ting in the morning.

Another grim moment involved a seeing a man having his head bashed in with a big iron bar.

One group, known as the Samurais, were the “ones that stab”.

“If you owe money, the come and collect the debt. They’re tough, you can’t stop them.”

However, he said Thai prisoners usually fight amongst themselves ‘”even though foreigners have been hit by them”.

While Mr Wheeler’s arrest may have been in the 1990s, today many Brits are lured into making the same risky choice he made back then.

Mr Wheeler said local drug gangs can spot when young people finish spending their money but “want to stay out there and have more paradise.

“People want more of that. The raves, the parties and all the rest of it. They want more of that,” he said.

“They [the gangs] are trying to be successful and make money to get another meal. They are trying to get you to do it again in the future.

“They will target vulnerable people. They’ll see that they’re down on their luck and they’re offering the run. They don’t want to come home, so they think ‘yeah, I’ll take the chance.”

Mr Wheeler said if these Brits were to tell the truth about what they had done, they would be facing far less severe penalties abroad.

“Unfortunately, so many people don’t put their hands up to it and they’re in denial. They can’t accept the fact they were caught really. That’s the problem with these people of late that have been arrested.”

“Just young and foolish,” he added.

In a message to anyone considering making a quick buck like this abroad, Mr Wheeler pleaded: “Just go home, save the money, go again. The place isn’t going away, it’ll still be there.”

Mr Wheeler’s book – The Tiger Cage: 18 Years In Thai Prison – can be purchased from Amazon.

Three Brits face death penalty in Indonesia

They are accused of smuggling almost 1kg into Bali.

Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 28, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 29, were arrested in February after customs officers spotted suspicious food items in their luggage during X-ray scans.

Up to 10 sachets of Angel Delight powdered dessert mix were discovered in Collyer’s luggage, a lab test later revealed. Seven similar sachets were found in Stocker’s suitcase with 993.56 grams of cocaine.

Phineas Ambrose Float, 31, was arrested two days later and is facing a separate trial.

He was detained following a controlled delivery set up by police in an operation which saw the other two suspects hand a drug to him in a hotel parking area in Denpasar.

They next week face the death penalty if found guilty. Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are typically executed by a firing squad.

Mother-of-one, 21, caught in Munich smuggling drugs from Thailand

Cameron Bradford, 21, from Knebworth, Hertfordshire, was detained by customs officers in Munich Airport on April 21 as she went to collect her luggage.

She faces at least four months in a German prison while authorities investigate the source of the drugs.

She has yet to be charged, with and a trial date yet to be be issued by the prosecution as the police probe continues.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting a British woman who is detained in Germany and are in contact with her family and the local authorities.”

Woman faces 25 years in jail for ‘smuggling cannabis’

Charlotte May Lee, 21, is facing up to 25 years in jail after allegedly being caught with £1.2 million worth of cannabis.

After her arrest in Colombo earlier this month, Ms Lee, from Coulsdon, south London, teared up at a court in the Sri Lankan capital, according to The Sun.

The part-time beautician, who formerly worked for airline TUI, reportedly stood in the witness box after being escorted in handcuffs by local officers.

Police also wheeled the 46kg cannabis load into the court as part of their investigation, it has been claimed.

They reportedly found the ‘Kush’ – a synthetic strain of cannabis – in Ms Lee’s suitcase after she landed in Sri Lanka on a flight from Bangkok.

She is being held in Negombo Prison, north of Colombo and is expected to return to court in two weeks.

British teenager is facing life in jail in a ‘hellhole’ prison

Bella May Culley, 18, allegedly carried the drugs into Georgia, where she was detained at Tbilisi international airport.

Days earlier she was reported missing while believed to be on holiday in Thailand.

Ms Culley has reportedly told the Tbilisi city court she is ‘pregnant’, the Mail reported.

Culley could now face two decades or more behind bars in the country’s only female prison, Tbilisi Prison No.5, located 45 minutes away from the ex-Soviet capital.

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