U.S Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a Guatemalan courier after his cocaine-filled toiletries caught their attention upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport.
Eric Eduardo Estacuy Juarez was charged with knowingly or intentionally importing a controlled substance after white powder found in three shampoo bottles was found to be cocaine.
Juarez, 39, was flying from Guatemala through Panama when, as is policy, he underwent a secondary examination due to his status as a courier.
According to a press release from the U.S. CBP, officers noticed Juarez’s shampoo bottles were made with double walls. Suspicious, an officer cut open one of the bottles and found a cellophane-wrapped package filled with cocaine.
The bottles contained more than two pounds, or $60,000, worth of cocaine.
According to the Washington Post, CBP officers found drugs in six Guatemalan couriers’ possession in the last four months of 2012, totaling more than 29 pounds of cocaine, and in one case the courier tried to hide the cocaine in double-walled stew jars.
“U.S. Customs and Border protections wants this latest interception to be a clear message to nefarious narcotics organizations that smuggling their deadly poison through courier shipments has once again proven unsuccessful,” said Christopher Hess, CBP port director for the Port of Washington, D.C. “If the bad guys try using courier shipments again, we plan to be waiting to intercept those parcels.”
[Stock Photo: Composition With Plastic Bottles Of Body Care And Beauty Products" on Shutterstock: https://tinyurl.com/qgk2466]
