This is the moment police cut away a man’s wig with a pair of scissors – to reveal he is hiding nearly £10,000 of cocaine underneath.
The drugs trafficker had concealed more than 220 grams of the class-A drug in 19 capsules inside his glued-down toupee before trying to board a flight from the Colombian city of Cartagena to Amsterdam.
The embarrassed 40-year-old was filmed patting the top of his closely-shaven head and covering it with the baseball cap he had been wearing after cops removed his expensive hairpiece before doing a narcotest and confirming he was smuggling cocaine.
Cartagena police chief Gelver Yecid Pena Araque said the suspect had been caught after airport ‘profiling’ by counter-narcotics officers and an X-ray scan.
He said: ‘The wig contained more than 220 grams of cocaine he was planning to take to Amsterdam.’
Colombian police said in a statement: ‘With this important result, the commercialization of more than 400 doses of cocaine in the international market, valued at over 10,000 euros, has been prevented.’
They said the arrested man, who comes from the western Colombian city of Pereira in the country’s coffee-growing region, had previous for drugs offences.
In October last year Colombian police pounced on a suspected British cocaine smuggler at the same airport – Rafael Nunez International Airport which serves the port city of Cartagena on the country’s Caribbean coast.
This is the moment police cut away a man’s wig with a pair of scissors – to reveal he is hiding nearly £10,000 of cocaine underneath
The embarrassed 40-year-old was filmed patting the top of his closely-shaven head and covering it with the baseball cap he had been wearing after cops removed his expensive hairpiece before doing a narcotest and confirming he was smuggling cocaine
The drugs trafficker had concealed more than 220 grams of the class-A drug in 19 capsules inside his glued-down toupee before trying to board a flight from the Colombian city of Cartagena to Amsterdam
They arrested him after finding two kilos of the drug hidden under a Mexican sombrero in his suitcase as he tried to leave the country.
Cops watched the white powder turned a giveaway blue after doing a colour test before marching him off for a mugshot.
The illegal contents of his luggage, found in a false bottom, had been laid out in front of him by a sign saying ‘COCAINA’ in capital letters.
The arrest happened as the unnamed traveller tried to board a flight to Panama although he was planning to travel from there to Istanbul and investigators said at the time they were trying to establish the final destination of the drugs.
In July 2019 police at Barcelona airport arrested a Colombian man suspected of trying to smuggle half a kilo of cocaine into Spain concealed under his wig.
Officers said at the time they noted the passenger, who had arrived on a flight from Bogota, had seemed extremely nervous but what most attracted their attention was the size and especially the height of his wig.
When they asked him to remove his toupee police found a packet containing just over 500 grams of cocaine glued to his head.
In the past female drug smugglers have also been caught with drugs concealed in breast implants.
Cartagena police chief Gelver Yecid Pena Araque said the suspect had been caught after airport ‘profiling’ by counter-narcotics officers and an X-ray scan
Colombian police said in a statement: ‘With this important result, the commercialization of more than 400 doses of cocaine in the international market, valued at over 10,000 euros, has been prevented’
Cartagena police chief Gelver Yecid Pena Araque said: ‘The wig contained more than 220 grams of cocaine he was planning to take to Amsterdam’
In April 2016 a man with a large bulge between his legs stopped as he tried to enter Spain turned out to be a drugs smuggler rather than a well-endowed traveller.
The 43-year-old had attached a Tupperware-type container to his privates with nearly half a kilo of cocaine inside.
He was searched as he flew into Madrid Airport from Costa Rica.
Officers went through his hand luggage and found nothing before turning their attention to his trouser department and the large object between his legs where he was hiding the class-A drug inside.
