A woman carrying two kilos (4.4 pounds) of cocaine in false hair braids has been jailed for 18 months in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, a regional customs official said Friday.
Regional Customs Director, Olivier Fouque said the 24-year-old woman from Guyana was caught at an airport in March.
The cocaine was in “tubes hidden in false braids,” the official said. The woman was jailed for 18 months and fined 30,000 euros, he added without giving more details.
Fouque cited the woman as an example of new ways being used to get drugs into France’s Caribbean islands after the introduction of tougher airport checks.
In 2023, there were 47 cases of people being detained for carrying cocaine and other drugs in their stomachs, according to the official, “with ‘one’ or ‘two’ this year”, he added.
France introduced tougher checks on flights in Guyana in 2022 and the tactic was extended to Guadeloupe and Martinique in March this year.
