American in Costa Rica was caught smuggling nearly a pound of cocaine (0.4 kg) in his stomach after he went into convulsions on a plane bound for Miami, police said on Friday.
National Police were tipped off by the US and Costa Rican marine patrollers in the northwestern Guanacaste province that there was a suspicious boat off the coast of Playa Flamingo.
Upon seeing the authorities on their way, the boat crew threw all of its cargo overboard, set fire to the boat, and ran towards the mountains. Despite all of these efforts, the crew was caught and six 20 kilogram packages of cocaine were found floating out at sea.
The National Police spotted the packages high out at sea and were the ones that followed the trails of candy wrappers and plastic bottles high into the mountains to catch these drug traffickers. The Columbian men were found in a rocky area with a GPS device, satellite phone, cash, machete, suitcases, their passports, and a bag of provisions. All five were arrested and ordered six months in preventative detention
The seizure of about 4.6 tons of marijuana by the U.S. Coast Guard just before Christmas on Dec. 22 marked a new record for Costa Rica. An old ship toting the valuable cargo was found off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica near Panama on its way from Colombia with an estimated $106 million in marijuana. Nobody was arrested in this incident as the crew abandoned the ship and could not be found. The drugs are now awaiting destruction by police officials in Heredia.
In a second drug bust just before the end of the year, about 15,000 marijuana plants were uprooted in Talamanca, on the southern Caribbean coast. These plants are destined to meet a similar end.
The year end totals show that about 63 people were arrested per day through 2007 for drug related activity. The majority of these were small offenses with less than 400 people being arrested for actually dealing drugs. This number includes 94 foreigners.
Authorities from the Drug Control agency noted that a large number of tips came in from outside the agency to help bring the drug dealers to justice.
Costa Rican agents made the largest marijuana bust in the Central American nation's history, seizing 4.85 tons of the drug found in an abandoned boat, police said Saturday.
The marijuana was discovered Friday during a patrol with the U.S. Coast Guard off the country's Pacific coast, Costa Rican police said in a statement.
The ship's crew fled, abandoning their 48-foot-long boat near the border with Panama, where they appear to have fled, police said. No arrests have been made.
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