Dubai: A woman passenger has been jailed for 10 years for smuggling nearly five kilograms of cocaine in her underwear and a stomach bandage belt.
An Emirati policewoman discovered the cocaine hidden in the 56-year-old Surinamese passenger’s underwear and stomach belt after she was spotted acting suspiciously at Dubai International Airport’s transit section
The Dubai Court of First Instance also fined the woman identified as W.J. Dh100,000.
“She will be deported following the completion of her punishment,” said presiding judge Mohammad Jamal on Tuesday.
The woman entered a guilty plea when she appeared in court.
“I am guilty … but I did not know what I was carrying,” she said.
Drug prosecutors charged W.J. with smuggling and transporting four plastic pouches that contained the cocaine via transit.
The policewoman testified that she exposed the defendant on March 5.
“My colleague stopped her and asked me to search her because she was walking suspiciously and quickly and seemed confused. When I searched her body, I realised that her underwear was abnormally bulgy. She hesitated when I asked her to remove her bra… she also hesitated when I asked her to remove the belt and the lower underwear. I made holes in the underwear and the belt and found the cocaine hidden inside. When I confronted her, she admitted that she was carrying a banned substance … but she claimed that she did not know what it was,” said the policewoman.
Prosecution records cited the Surinamese confessing that she took the drugs from someone in Brazil and was supposed to transport them to a man named Salim in Uganda.
She admitted that Salim was supposed to pay her $13,000 (Dh47,747) as soon as she delivered the substances to him.
The primary judgement remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
