Two Polish men have been accused of attempting to smuggle heroin into Taiwan by swallowing capsules of the drug wrapped in multiple layers of latex, the Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) Investigation Branch said.
The two men, aged 39 and 30, were intercepted at customs and each excreted nearly 100 capsules of heroin, at a total weight of 1kg, the branch said.
The latex-wrapped pellets weighed about 10g each, and could remain in the stomach for one to two weeks, making them highly discreet and difficult to detect, investigators said.
Photo copied by Cheng Ching-yi, Taipei Times
Body-packers — drug mules who ingest contraband — typically carry no more than about 1kg of narcotics, police said, adding that such cases are difficult to investigate, as authorities often cannot confirm their suspicions without reliable intelligence and sufficient evidence to obtain warrants from prosecutors.
The practice poses serious health risks to couriers, as the capsules can become lodged in the intestines or rupture inside the body, potentially resulting in death without emergency surgery, they said.
In addition to body-packing, some smugglers hide drugs in false compartments of checked luggage to evade X-ray machines, they said.
International drug syndicates typically source heroin from the Golden Triangle in Thailand and recruit people from European nations who are struggling financially with promises of high payouts, directing them to enter Taiwan on tourist visas, the branch said.
Working closely with US Homeland Security Investigations, the branch has cracked 14 cross-border airport drug trafficking cases since October last year, arresting 22 suspects, it said.
Of the 14 cases, 11 involved body-packing and three involved hidden luggage compartments, with all successful interceptions relying heavily on real-time international intelligence sharing, police said.
The joint operation seized a total of 23.3kg of heroin, or the equivalent of 62 heroin bricks, at an estimated street value of more than NT$80 million (US$2.53 million), which could have supplied as many as 770,000 doses, authorities said.
Of the 22 suspects arrested, six were Polish, five were Taiwanese, three were Thai, three were Hungarians, two were from the US, two were Latvians and one was French, they said, adding that some have been indicted.
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