Record haul of cocaine found inside plush toys at Sri Lanka airport; woman arrested
Sri Lanka's customs authorities arrested on Friday a woman and seized the largest haul of cocaine ever detected at the country's main international airport, an official said.
The unnamed 38-year-old Thai woman was carrying nearly 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of cocaine stuffed into three plush toys, Customs Additional Director-General Seevali Arukgoda said.
"This is the biggest attempt at cocaine smuggling stopped by Sri Lanka Customs at the airport," Arukgoda said in a statement.
Customs officials at Bandaranaike International Airport posed for photos with the cocaine, which had been neatly stuffed into just over 500 plastic capsules, with an estimated street value of $1.72 million.
The seizure follows three other hauls this month totaling nearly 60 kilograms of synthetic cannabis.
Three foreign nationals -- from Britain, India, and Thailand -- were arrested in separate cases.
The Briton, identified as Charlotte May Lee, 21, a former cabin crew member from London, was produced before a magistrate on Friday and further remanded until June 13, court officials said.
She was arrested on May 12 when officials discovered that her two suitcases were packed with 46 kilograms of kush, a synthetic drug.
Lee told the BBC she had travelled from Bangkok to Sri Lanka's capital Colombo to renew her Thai visa. She described her living conditions at a prison in Negombo, a city just north of the capital, saying she spends most of her day inside, although she does get to go outside for fresh air.
"I have never been to prison and I've never been to Sri Lanka," she told the BBC. "This heat and just sitting on a concrete floor all of the time."
British woman accused of drug offences appears in Sri Lanka court https://t.co/s53nBjG2HZ — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) May 30, 2025
All four suspects, including the Thai woman arrested on Friday, could face life imprisonment if convicted.
Sri Lankan authorities have previously seized large quantities of heroin off the country's shores, suggesting the island is being used as a transit hub for narcotics destined for other locations.
In October, a Sri Lankan court sentenced 10 Iranian men to life imprisonment after they pleaded guilty to smuggling more than 111 kilograms of heroin. In 2023, nine Iranians received life sentences in a separate drug smuggling case.
Sri Lanka's largest single seizure of narcotics occurred in December 2016, when Customs found 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds) of cocaine in a shipment container of timber addressed to a company in neighboring India.
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Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Higher U.S. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Imports Take Effect
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Miami Herald
12 hours ago
- Miami Herald
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Fox News
a day ago
- Fox News
Three British nationals could face death by firing squad for allegedly smuggling cocaine into Indonesia
Three British nationals could face death by a firing squad after they allegedly smuggled about a kilogram – over two pounds – of cocaine onto the island of Bali in Indonesia. The Associated Press reported that prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara said 28-year-old Jonathan Christopher Collyer and 29-year-old Lisa Ellen Stocker were arrested Feb. 1, after customs officers stopped them at the X-ray machine when they found suspicious items disguised as food packages inside their luggage. Umbara told the District Court in Denpasar during a court hearing on Tuesday that a lab test result confirmed 10 pouches of "Angel Delight" powdered desert mix in Collyer's luggage, along with seven similar pouches in Stocker's suitcase contained 993.56 grams, or 2.19 pounds, of cocaine, worth about 6 billion rupiah ($368,000). Two days after Collyer and Stocker were arrested, police arrested 31-year-old Phineas Ambrose Float after a delivery sting set up by law enforcement that involved the other two suspects handing the drug to him in the parking lot of a hotel in Denpasar. Float is being tried separately, according to Umbara. The cocaine was transported from England to Indonesia by way of the Doha International Airport in Qatar, Umbara explained. The trio successfully smuggled cocaine into Bali on two previous occasions before being stopped on their third attempt, Ponco Indriyo, the deputy director of the Bali Police Narcotics Unit, said during a news conference in Denpasar on Feb. 7. The charges against the trio were announced on Tuesday in a Bali courtroom. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. In Indonesia, drug smugglers are sometimes executed by way of a firing squad. A panel of three judges adjourned the trial until June 10, when the court will listen to testimony from witnesses. According to the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, there are currently 530 people on death row in Indonesia, including 96 foreigners, mostly for drug-related crimes, the AP reported. The last executions in Indonesia were of an Indonesian and three foreigners, which were carried out in July 2016. Lindsay Sandiford, 69, from Great Britain, has been on death row in Indonesia for over a decade. Sandiford was arrested in 2012 after she was discovered to be in possession of more than eight pounds of cocaine in the lining of her luggage at Bali's airport. The highest court in Indonesia upheld the death sentence for Sandiford in 2013. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
