FORMER Premier League star Ronnie Stam has been jailed for SEVEN YEARS after being found guilty of drug smuggling.
The ex-Wigan Athletic ace was charged with conspiring to smuggle more than TWO TONNES of cocaine into his homeland of the Netherlands after being arrested in June.
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The street value of the cocaine was a whopping £48.6MILLION.
Stam was facing a total of 13 years behind bars as prosecutors deemed him to be a major player in the Dutch criminal world.
But the 41-year-old has been handed a seven-year custodial sentence after being acquitted of two of the more serious charges levelled at him.
Stam was found guilty of trafficking 724 kilos of cocaine and MDMA and being in possession of nitrous oxide, or “laughing gas” as it’s more commonly known.
Stam initially denied being a “major player” in the drug world.
He said: “It was stupid to go along with those guys.
“But I had nothing to do with those big batches of cocaine and nothing to do with setting up lines.
“That was them and they kept me out of it.”
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But he later admitted to being involved in a plot to smuggle 20 kilos of coke from Brazil to Frankfurt.
The drugs ended up being intercepted in Chile before their scheduled arrival in Rotterdam.
Stam’s parents, brother and his girlfriend were also arrested on suspicion of being involved in drug smuggling after police hacked an encrypted message service.
A police raid of six houses and a camper van led to the discovery of £85,000 in cash.
In addition to his custodial sentence, Stam has been ordered to repay £1.47mi of his illegal profits.
Stam spent three years with Wigan after winning the 2009/10 Eredivisie with Steve McClaren‘s FC Twente.
He made 73 appearances for the Latics but missed their famous FA Cup final victory over Manchester City with a broken leg.
Stam would enjoy a brief stint with Standard Liege after leaving the then JJB Stadium before returning to his boyhood club NAC Breda.
