Portugal’s Polícia Judiciária said two men were arrested Monday at Lisbon International Airport after authorities discovered more than two pounds of cocaine on them, and the drugs were attached to a bathing suit in cushion-like implants in the rear of the bathing suit, Sky News reported.
It is still unclear how the drugs were revealed, but the man who was carrying the drugs was arrested by Portugal’s anti-narcotics unit at the airport. Sky News reported that the man was from Brazil.
The other man was apprehended at a nearby train station, Sky News reported. It was suspected that he would have been the receiver of the drugs.
Police said the amount of cocaine found was equivalent to at least 5,000 sellable individual portions of the drug. Drug possession and use is decriminalized in Portugal but trafficking is not, and can carry prison sentences of up to 12 years.
This isn’t the first attempt at trying to use fake implants to traffic drugs from country to country. In 2013, a man dressed as a woman tried to smuggle cocaine in a fake butt implant at an airport in southern Brazil.
The Huffington Post said the man was to fly from Campinas, Brazil, to Lisbon, Portugal, and then on to Brussels, where he would receive $5,000. He was apprehended while waiting for his flight to Europe.
The Daily Mail reported that in 2011, a model, who had just arrived in Rome from Brazil, was arrested after authorities found 5.5 pounds of cocaine concealed in fake breast and buttock implants.
In 2016, cocaine accounted for nearly 20 percent of all drug trafficking, according to Drugabuse.com. New smuggling techniques are making it harder for drug enforcement agencies to monitor criminal activities and crack down on widespread operations.
