Two women were arrested at John F. Kennedy airport in New York for trying to smuggle 2 kilos of cocaine in their weaves and hairpieces.
The two women just got off Caribbean Airlines Flight 526 from Georgetown, Guyana on Sunday when they were pulled aside by customs officials because they looked suspicious. The women appeared nervous as they approached the airport customs checkpoint.
They were nervous because they stashed powdered cocaine beneath their wigs. Customs agents noticed a strange bump on the women's heads and asked them to remove their hairpieces.
Kiana Howell said she couldn't remove her weave because she had a package sewn into it. She told authorities that her boyfriend told her to stash the package under her hairpiece and to bring it to the United States for him. She was paid $7,500 to transport the drugs.
Makeeba Graham, a 33-year-old resident of Harlem, New York told the investigators that she couldn't take off her hairpiece because it was sewn into her real hair.
They were taken to a medical facility to be inspected. Workers removed their wigs and found the drugs. The cocaine was in form-fitting plastic packages and hidden by the artificial hair.
Kiana Howell had 996 grams of cocaine stored in her weave. Graham stashed 1,046 grams of the drug under her wig. The drugs weighed over four and a half pounds together.
Howell and Graham are facing drug-smuggling charges in a federal court in Brooklyn.
It is common for drug smugglers to get creative with the ways that they transport drugs. Last month, a California man was arrested at LAX because he was carrying meth that was disguised as Snickers candy bars.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
