Two British men jailed for smuggling 1.3kg-worth of cocaine into Bali

Two British nationals have been sentenced to prison in Indonesia after being convicted of smuggling cocaine into Bali, a popular holiday destination. Kial Garth Robinson, aged 29 from Littlehampton, received an 11-year prison term. Meanwhile, Piran Ezra Wilkinson, 48, hailing from Chichester, was handed a nine-year sentence. Both men were also required to pay fines amounting to approximately £45,000, or face an additional 190 days behind bars.

Robinson was apprehended in September at Ngurah Rai International Airport when customs agents discovered two packages containing a total of 1.3 kilograms of cocaine packed inside his backpack. According to police statements, Robinson claimed that a man had instructed him to transport the drugs from Barcelona, Spain, to Bali and hand them over to Wilkinson, who had arrived in Bali a few days prior. Wilkinson was arrested the day after Robinson, in the area of Canggu on Bali’s southern coast.

Prosecutors revealed that the two men were friends who had been living in Thailand and had met just a week before their arrests in Barcelona. At the court hearing, Robinson’s defense lawyer, Robert Khuana, stated: “These items were brought from Barcelona to Bali, but they aren’t meant for distribution. My client was purely a courier, but he knew he was trapped in a syndicate scenario and was persuaded with $5,000 and another $5,000 for debt repayment and he was therefore willing to bring the drugs to Bali. What made the sentence harsher was that his actions threatened the security against drug distributions in Indonesia. Although he didn’t know the contents of the package, he knew the contents were dangerous. If he had known, he wouldn’t have done what he did.”

The UK Foreign Office responded to the sentencing by confirming, “We are providing assistance to two British nationals detained in Indonesia and are in contact with the local authorities.” Indonesia enforces some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, with trafficking offences potentially punishable by death. However, since 2017, the country has maintained a temporary moratorium on carrying out death penalties. In a separate incident, Lisa Stocker and Jon Collyer, a married couple, were arrested at Bali’s airport in February 2025 for possession of nearly one kilogram of a Class A drug. They, along with Phineas Float, who was supposed to receive the drugs, were sentenced to 12 months and can expect to be released early in 2026

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