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Coke In Hangers and Heroin In Clothes Seized At Airports
By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 13, 2010
Modified Nov 13, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 13, 2010
Modified Nov 13, 2010
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It seems like people really love trying to sneak heroin into JFK, but considering how often they get caught, you'd think they might try a different airport. In the third incident in as many months, custom officials seized more than 16 pounds of heroin in six pairs of pants and five pairs of cargo shorts at JFK.
Two men from Ecuador were arrested on Nov. 1 trying to smuggle the drugs into the country; officials were tipped off by their clothing, which was "unusually heavy." At Newark Liberty Airport two days earlier, officials seized 30 pounds of cocaine saturated into a Costa Rican woman's clothing. and concealed in wooden hangers, similar to heroin seized over the summer. Something is up with the smugglers: in 2008, there were 10,530 seizures of illegal drugs at airports and seaports in the New Jersey-New York area, but so far this year, the number of seizures has increased nearly 40 percent to 14,547. Are police getting better at catching them, are more drugs being smuggled into the country, or are smugglers getting worse at what they do?
Tagged
airport
clothing
cocaine
drug seizures
heroin
JFK
newark
smugglers
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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