Police bust drug mule with cocaine concealed in breast implants

Disguised as detergent, hidden in reels of cotton or jars of mayonnaise, sewn into the double layer of a suitcase or ingested by a “mule”… The number of ways to try and smuggle drugs is endless.

But customs officers at Barcelona’s El Prat airport had never come across the ruse attempted by a 20-year-old Panamanian woman, who was arrested on Wednesday with two prosthetic breasts filled with more than a kilogram of cocaine.

During a routine search, police officers pulled the woman – who had arrived on a flight from Colombia – aside to search her luggage and person for drugs. The officer who conducted the search noticed that the woman had gauzes on the underside of her breasts. On removing them, it became apparent that the wounds had not healed. The woman claimed that she had recently undergone breast implant surgery.

Customs medical officers performed an X-ray and then transferred the woman to Bellvitge hospital. The implants, which were surgically removed, were found to contain 1,377 grams of cocaine. The drugs had already begun to enter the woman’s bloodstream.

This is the first time the Spanish police have come across this modus operandi, which presents great risks to the carrier.

In 2011, 407,000 drug seizures were made in Spain, with 17,276 arrests. Eight out of 10 detainees are male and 60 percent are Spanish nationals. Customs officers seized 1,400 kilos of drugs last year in Barcelona’s El Prat airport alone.