DUBAI: A woman passenger has been accused of smuggling 4.6kg of cocaine hidden in her undergarments at Dubai International Airport.
A law enforcement officer was said to have stopped the 42-year-old Zambian woman, O.M., as she was walking suspiciously to the transit terminal in April.
After searching her, the woman was found to be wearing beige elasticised shorts in which she hid eight plastic pouches containing cocaine.
Drugs prosecutors charged O.M. with possessing and smuggling drugs via Dubai in transit.
The Zambian woman pleaded guilty when she appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday.
“Yes, I got the cocaine with me,” she told presiding judge Mohammad Jamal.
According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said the defendant hid 1.4kg of cocaine in the shorts and 3.2kg of the same drug in her underwear.
An anti-narcotics police sergeant testified to prosecutors that the woman traveller was stopped at the transit terminal shortly after her plane arrived from Brazil.
“At around 9.45pm, she arrived at the airport and was walking towards the transit terminal to continue her trip to Zambia. The woman seemed to be frightened and confused. The way she was moving, it was quite obvious that she was hiding something between her legs that was hindering her walk. I asked her to stop and accompany me to a private search room. Then I asked one of my women partners to search her. The search resulted in finding the a white substance that looked like cocaine hidden in the beige shorts. Upon confronting her with the findings, she admitted that it is a banned substance, contending that she did not know what type of drug is it. Then she claimed that she agreed to smuggle it from Brazil to Zambia via Dubai in transit for Dh18,400,” said the sergeant.
