A Canadian woman has been caught trying to smuggle 2 kg of cocaine inside a fake pregnant belly, local media reported Wednesday.
According to news website Semana, anti-narcotics police stopped 28-year-old Ritchie Tabatha Leah in Bogota’s El Dorado airport after an official saw her behaving strangely. She was hoping to catch a plane back to Toronto, Canada.
After conducting a separate search, officials were surprised to find that instead of being seven months pregnant, Leah was in fact wearing a latex prosthetic of a pregnant belly.
Within the belly were hidden two 1 kg bags of cocaine, which, according to the authorities, would have been worth around $60,000 in Canada.
“[She] assured us that she was seven months pregnant,” said Colonel Esteban Arias Melo, the sub director of the anti-narcotics police. “And she was getting aggressive, allowing us to confirm… that her pregnancy was in fact an elaborate latex belly, easy to stick to her back.”
Leah, who had been in Colombia since August 6th, claimed to be visiting friends.
She is the 94th foreigner to be captured in Colombia’s airports in 2013 trying to smuggle drugs out of the country.
Sources
La barriga falsa y llena de droga de una canadiense (Semana)
