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Broken-legged smuggler 'caught with cocaine cast'
Posted Sat Mar 7, 2009 8:24am AEDT
A 66-year-old passenger who arrived at Barcelona Airport in a wheelchair and with a leg cast made entirely of cocaine has been arrested as he tried to get through Spanish customs.
Spanish police say the Chilean man, who was on a flight from Santiago, was arrested at Barcelona Airport with five kilograms of cocaine partly in the cast.
Cocaine was also allegedly contained in fake beer cans and hidden inside the legs of folding stools in his luggage.
Suspects with drugs concealed underneath real plaster casts have been detained in the past, but Spanish news reports say this is the first time airport officials have seen a cast made entirely of compressed cocaine.
The Chilean man has been charged with drugs trafficking and transferred to hospital for an operation on his broken leg.
Police believe the man, or his accomplices, may have broken the leg on purpose so as not to arouse the suspicions of customs officials. Spain is the primary entry point for cocaine into Europe and is the largest consumer of the drug in the European Union.
Broken-legged smuggler 'caught with cocaine cast' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
