| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| suitcases made from - rather than filled with - cocaine. |
| 2009-06-06 |
| Police in Chile say they have arrested a woman bound for Spain who was carrying suitcases made from - rather than filled with - cocaine. Officials pulled the woman aside and decided to search her bags when she acted nervously, reports said. Their suspicions were further aroused when they found the two bags were heavier than their contents. The black suitcases were made from a mixture of pure cocaine and plastic and each weighed more than 20 kilos (44lb). The cocaine, which was later extracted by authorities using a chemical process, was reported to weigh up to 15 kilos. "In this case, the suitcases were the drug," police inspector Leandro Morales was quoted as saying. The 24-year-old Argentine woman carrying the bags had stopped in the Chilean capital, Santiago on her way from Argentina to Madrid. She initially said she was going to visit friends on holiday, but later confessed to smuggling drugs, Mr Morales said. She would have received a payment of $5,000 (£3,070) if she had delivered the suitcases, he said. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 The Chilean coke exporters have obviously been watching Cheech & Chong's "Up In Smoke". |
| Posted by: AzCat 2009-06-06 23:01 |
| #3 In the old Billie Crystal movie RUNNING SCARED they had pots made out of cocaine that people (in this case a priest) brought back from their visit to Central America. I'm sort of surprised it took so long for something similar to happen. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-06-06 19:53 |
| #2 According to http://www.narcoticnews.com, the average wholesale price is approx. $15,000-20,000 per kilo. For 15 kilos, that's at least $225,000. That makes her cut (if I'm doing the math right) 2.2% of wholesale. I guess that would be close to 3% or 4% retail. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2009-06-06 19:15 |
| #1 I wonder how much that cocaine would have been worth... I suspect they were paying her something like less than 1% of the retail value to risk her freedom in this fashion. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-06-06 19:06 |