Shureen Giddings facing drug charges in the US (Photo Capitol News)
Guyanese drug mule arrested at US airport after passing over 100 cocaine pellets
New York, US, Nov. 18, 2015 – A Guyanese hairdresser is facing drug charges in the United States after passing 105 pellets of cocaine at the John F Kennedy Airport in New York.
Shureen Giddings, 26, swallowed the drug-filled pellets before getting on the plane in Guyana on November 9.
On arrival in New York, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers searched her luggage and did a body pat-down, but found nothing.
However, after further questioning, the mother of one confessed to the agents and asked to use the bathroom as she could no longer hold the pellets.
Giddings passed 17 of the pellets there and was then taken to a medical facility at the airport where an x-ray was done and it was discovered she had more pellets in her stomach. She subsequently passed 88 pellets.
The drugs weighed three pounds.
Giddings was charged with cocaine importation.
Jamaican woman arrested on cocaine charges
by STAFF WRITER
Baltimore, US, Nov. 21, CMC – The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency says it has arrested a Jamaican woman for smuggling more than four ounces of cocaine inside her body.
CBP said officers discovered the drug after Camella Simone Whyte, 31, arrived on a flight from Montego Bay, Jamaica.
“Whyte consented to a medical examination during questioning, and that medical exam revealed the presence of foreign objects inside her body,” CBP said.
“Whyte was induced, and she passed 10 thumb-sized pellets. The pellets contained a white powdery substance that field-tested positive for cocaine.”
The pellet’s total weighed measured about 120 grams or 4.2 ounces, said CBP, adding that it “paroled Whyte into the US so that she can be prosecuted”.
CBP’s Area Port Director for the Port of Baltimore, Dianna Bowman, warned that “smuggling narcotics inside one’s body is dangerous.
“If a pellet breaches inside a courier, the result could be a very painful death,” she said, adding “narcotics interdiction remains an enforcement priority for Customs and Border Protection, and a mission that we take very seriously”.
Meanwhile:
US Coast Guard seizes millions of dollars in cocaine
Drugs seized off Dominican Republic (CMC Photo)
MIAMI, Nov 21, CMC – The United States Coast Guard says it has seized 515 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated wholesale value of US$17 million during an operation in the Caribbean Sea last week.
It said that on November 15, a joint interagency task force patrol aircraft located a suspicious go-fast vessel with multiple packages aboard southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic.
It said after the vessel was intercepted 22 packages, later found to be cocaine were discovered. Four suspects were held.
“This seizure highlights how effectively the US Coast Guard and our Allied partners are working together to disrupt the flow of illicit drugs from South America into the United States, the Caribbean and Europe,” said Cmdr. Timothy Cronin, deputy chief of law enforcement for the Coast Guard 7th District.
“We have to keep these drugs from penetrating our borders. More importantly, we have to get after the organized criminal networks that fuel the violence and instability in the Western Hemisphere,” he added.
Since October 2014, the US Coast Guard said it has removed and seized over 222 metric tons of cocaine estimated at US$7.4 billion.
