BOGOTA, Colombia: Drug trafficking is a lucrative business so people try all kinds of cunning techniques to smuggle illegal substances to rake in the profits.
We have heard of instances where drugs were concealed in porcelain figurines, sewn into pants, molded into sneakers, packed into baby diapers, toothpaste, cosmetics etc.
Though surveillance equipment, airport scanners and cargo X-rays are getting modernised, drug-smugglers keep finding innovative ways to keep pace. A Canadian woman was recently apprehended trafficking drugs in a rather ingenious method.
A woman was caught trying to sneak past the authorities with two kilograms of cocaine concealed under a fake pregnancy bump.
The Canadian national, Tabitha Ritchie was arrested as she tried to board a flight to Toronto at Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport Bogota in Colombia with stash worth approximately £38,000.
Custom officers became suspicious of her after she reacted aggressively to an innocuous enquiry by a security official as to when the baby was due. The 28-year-old social worker told her she was seven months into her pregnancy.
Ritchie’s response raised the hackles of the female official who became suspicious and went on to search her. She touched the baby bump and noticed that it felt “too hard and extremely cold”.
A thorough examination revealed that the woman wasn’t pregnant at all. Her “seven-month bump” was a latex pouch that contained 2kg of cocaine, commonly referred to as Charlie by drug users.
