Eight veiled women 'caught smuggling £7.5m of drugs into Indonesia'
Eight veiled Iranian women have been caught allegedly trying to smuggle £7.5m of drugs into Indonesia.
The women, who were joined by two men, tried to 'fool officers where women in black veils are generally considered to be good women'.
The group of apparent drug smugglers were found with 27kg of crystal methamphetamine at Indonesia's Soekarno-Hatta airport today.
On show: Armed Indonesian customs officers parade the drug smuggling suspects following their arrests at the country's main airport today. Six of the eight women are still wearing their burqas
They also had 23 litres of the drug in liquid form, said customs chief Anwar Suprijadi.
It is the largest drug bust in the airport's history, he said, describing how the group had arrived on flights from Malaysia, Syria and Qatar on Monday and Tuesday.
Indonesian authorities have never seen veiled women used as drug runners, he said.
The drugs, wrapped in plastic food containers and cleaning fluid bottles, were packed into hand luggage. But the oddly-shaped packages were picked out by officers operating scanners.
'We believe they are part of an international syndicate,' he said.
By wearing conservative Islamic clothing the women tried to 'fool officers in a country like Indonesia, where women in black veils are generally considered to be good women', he explained.
Suspects: Two of the women, stripped of their headscarves, bow their heads as armed guards look on
Nine suspects were paraded in front of the media at an airport detention facility today, while a tenth is said to have attempted suicide and was in a hospital. A 26-year-old man, who allegedly carried the liquid drug from Doha, tried to sever an artery with a razor blade.
Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws and traffickers are regularly sentenced to death. By the end of 2008, about 140 people were on death row, including more than 40 foreigners, most of them for drug-related crimes.
Customs offices across Indonesia, a vast Muslim-majority nation of 235 million people, were warned to be on the lookout for other possible smuggling attempts.
Poor law enforcement, corruption and high demand make Indonesia an attractive location for drug producers.
On display: The women hold their heads in their hands as customs officials rifle through their luggage
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1221933/Eight-veiled-women-caught-smuggling-7-5m-drugs-Indonesia.html#ixzz0UdBEPtTe
Veiled Iranian women suspected of drug smuggling
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