By Isabel Hayes
A qualified rail engineer who was caught with nearly €350,000 worth of cannabis herb after he flew into the country from Bangkok has been jailed for five and a half years.
Cody Ferguson (25), a UK national, was stopped by customs officers at Dublin Airport on August 25, 2025 after he got off a flight from Bangkok via Doha, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Tuesday.
When his suitcase was searched, a total of 34 packages concealed within the suitcase were uncovered, containing cannabis herb with a market value of €348,000, Garda Marie Ruddy told the court. Ferguson was due to take a connecting flight to Manchester when he was stopped at customs.
Ferguson originally told customs officers he had been holidaying in Thailand but he later told gardaí he was acting as a drugs courier to pay off a drug debt. He said he was due to be paid about €1000 for the job.
Ferguson, of Howard Park, Cleakheaton, Bradford, UK, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing cannabis herb for sale or supply at Dublin Airport on August 25 last year. He has 11 previous convictions in the UK – 10 for drug offences and one for burglary.
Dominic McGinn SC, defending, said his client is a qualified rail engineer and has a seven-month-old baby. He said his time in custody will be more difficult for him as a foreign national.
Sentencing Ferguson, Judge Martin Nolan accepted that a term of imprisonment will be “quite lonely” for him as he will get less visitors.
He set a headline sentence of nine years, which he reduced to five and a half years, taking the early guilty plea and other mitigating factors into account. He backdated the sentence to when Ferguson went into custody on the day of his arrest.