"Walking Feels Strange"... X-ray Reveals 68 Cocaine Capsules in Stomach

X-ray Results Show 68 Cocaine Capsules Inside
Deaths Occur When Bags or Capsules Rupture During Smuggling Process

A drug courier attempting to enter the arrival hall at an international airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a large quantity of drugs hidden inside their body was caught.

The image of the airport security search is unrelated to the article content.

On the 23rd (local time), South African police Instagram and News24, among other foreign media, reported that South African police arrested a 30-year-old Namibian woman at Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport the previous day. According to photos released on social media by the South African Police Service, the woman’s body was filled with pill-shaped drugs. An X-ray of the woman’s body revealed 68 cocaine capsules inside.

The woman had departed from S?o Paulo, Brazil. After receiving prior intelligence, South African police mobilized customs and immigration officers to wait for her arrival. She was immediately arrested the moment she passed through immigration. The police promptly transferred her to a local hospital and began the process of extracting the capsules from her body. Afterwards, the South African police detained her in custody, and she is scheduled to appear at Kempton Park Court on drug possession charges. The woman is the 10th drug courier arrested at OR Tambo International Airport in two months, during which drugs worth 13 million rand (approximately 1 billion KRW) were seized.

Meanwhile, drug couriers who smuggle drugs hidden inside their bodies are called "body packers." They transport drugs by placing them in plastic bags or capsules that do not dissolve inside the body and swallowing them whole. If the bags or capsules rupture inside the body during smuggling, it often results in death. Last month, a woman in Bolivia died of drug overdose after some of the 24 drug capsules she was carrying inside her body ruptured while she was en route to Brazil. Previously, in 2019, a Japanese man who swallowed 246 cocaine packets died on a flight from Mexico City, Mexico, to Tokyo, Japan.