In a report from CNN, a security check at an airport in Spain caused a woman to head to an operating table so packs of cocaine could be removed from her breast implants. The woman arrived at the airport on a suspicious flight and the story she told investigators did not make sense.
The woman is a citizen of Panama and her plane landed at Barcelona’s Prat airport on what has been described as a ‘hot flight.’ A ‘hot flight’ is one that originates from an area known for drug trafficking. The flight came from Bogota, Columbia. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration says that 90 percent of cocaine trafficked into the country comes from Colombia.
According to Spain’s interior ministry, the woman was giving security agents vague answers as to why she was in town. Her answers and some of her other behavior led agents to believe that she could have been in possession of drugs.
The woman was patted down by a female officer, who found bandages under the woman’s breasts that were covered in blood. The officer said that the gauze was covering incisions. The woman told the officer that she had fresh breast implants, but they did not believe her. This led the police to take her to a hospital.
“There, a medical team extracted a bag-shaped prosthesis from each breast containing a white pasty substance,” the ministry said.
Found inside her breasts was close to 1.4 kilograms (three pounds) of cocaine. The DEA says that pure cocaine sells for $35,000 per pound.