Woman smuggles cocaine into Madrid sewn into her breasts as 'implants'

The 43-year-old landed at Madrid's Adolfo Suárez-Barajas airport yesterday (Friday) on a connecting flight from Bogotá, Colombia, having come from Caracas, the capital of her native Venezuela.

Her apparently nervous and suspicious behaviour as she passed through immigration made border police suspect she may be carrying drugs, and called for the anti-substance squad to search her suitcase.

Neither her checked luggage nor her hand baggage showed any signs of drugs, so officials decided to strip-search her.

As they did so, they noticed her breasts were a strange shape and size.

She eventually panicked and confessed she was carrying bags of cocaine inside them as though they were silicone implants.

Given the serious risk to her life that the situation entailed, she was rushed straight to a hospital in Madrid and operated on before being arrested.

In total, 1.7 kilos of cocaine had been stitched into her breasts in plastic bags.

The case is identical to that of a 20-year-old Panamá woman searched three years ago when she arrived at Madrid airport from her native country.

She had cuts along the tops of her breasts and dried blood which, when questioned, she said was because she had just had silicone implants fitted.

A closer inspection revealed the blood was mixed with white powder.

The 'implants' turned out to be two large bags of cocaine.

Medics had to put her under general anaesthetic and cut her breasts open to remove the bags.

They had been sewn into her back in Panamá, also under anaesthetic, by a gang of drug barons.