Brit arrested at Colombian airport 'trying to fly home with £2m of cocaine'
A British man has been arrested at a Colombian airport accused of trying to fly to the UK with £2 million worth of cocaine in his luggage.
He was held as he tried to board a flight to the Colombian capital Bogota before continuing to London.
Local authorities said he was stopped and searched after his “suspicious attitude” alerted police and a specialist sniffer dog called Maximo.
Footage released overnight by El Pais newspaper shows the unnamed Brit watching on in a white T-shirt with a rucksack on his back as his suitcase was opened in front of him.
He was held as he tried to board a flight to the Colombian capital Bogota (Twitter)A police officer could be overheard telling him through a translator: “Now we’re going to do a test called a narco test” before cutting open one of the taped-up bricks of cocaine laid out on a table by the open suitcase.
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The arrest happened at Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport, an international airport located between Palmira and Cali which is Colombia’s fourth-busiest airport in passenger volume.
Ever Gomez, commander of the Valle del Cauca police department which covers the airport said: “We found 16 packets containing 23 kilos of cocaine hydrochloride inside his luggage.
The sniffer dog alerted police (Twitter)“He has been remanded in prison after appearing before a judge.”
The cocaine would have had a potential value of around £2 million if cut and sold at street level.
Local reports said the authorities were now trying to establish any connections with Colombian drug gangs. It is not known where in the UK the man is from.
In June last year, a British man was arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle a kilo of cocaine strapped to his body out of another Colombian airport.
Police held him after he allegedly threw a packet containing the drug into an airport toilet after spotting uniformed officers at a security checkpoint.
His mugshot appeared in the Colombian national press and footage of him being paraded in front of photographers in a baseball cap, hoodie top and shorts, with two officers on either side of him, was also published by the country’s media.
Police carrying out a narcotest (Twitter)The infamous Peru Two, Michaella McCollum from Dungannon, Northern Ireland, and Melissa Reid from Lenzie, Scotland, was arrested on 6 August 2013 on suspicion of drug smuggling at Jorge Chávez International Airport, Lima, Peru, after their luggage was found to contain 11 kilos of cocaine.
They initially claimed they had been coerced by an armed gang but subsequently pleaded guilty. On 17 December 2013, the pair were sentenced to six years and eight months imprisonment.
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McCollum applied to be freed on parole and was released on 31 March 2016, with the prospect of having to remain in Peru for up to six years.
In April 2016 the Peruvian authorities agreed to expel Reid from the country.
She was released from prison on 21 June that year and immediately returned to Britain, arriving at Glasgow airport the following day.
McCollum returned to Europe two months later, arriving at Dublin airport in Ireland on 13 August 2016. She later wrote a book about her experiences titled "You’ll Never See Daylight Again."
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