A 40-year-old Colombian male was arrested at Cartagena’s Rafael Nunez International Airport after he tried to smuggle cocaine that had been hidden inside a hair wig he was wearing. The man, from Pereira, who was poised to catch a flight to Amsterdam, had over 220 grams (7.76 ounces) of cocaine in his wig, which the police found.
According to BBC, the drugs had a street value of around $10,450 (Rs 910,828) and were set to be split into over 400 doses. Colombia Anti-Narcotics officers scanned the suspicious wig and identified it. When they scanned the wig further, they discovered the hidden illicit substances inside. Footage taken from a body scan provided by Colombian authorities reveals the wig being cut open to reveal the huge quantity of cocaine.
Watch the video here:
𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙊𝙉𝘼𝙇𝙀𝙎 //
ALERTA AEROPUERTO NARCOPELUCA🗣Un hombre oriundo de Pereira fue capturado en el aeropuerto internacional Rafael Núñez de Cartagena cuando intentaba abordar un vuelo con destino a Países Bajos con cocaína oculta en una peluca pic.twitter.com/0lHxDWVS4X
— Ing Julio Robles (@ingjuliorobles) February 25, 2025
According to a United Nations report, Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine exporter and set a new record in 2023 for the production of the drug and cultivation of the coca leaf it is made from. Coca leaf cultivation was 10 per cent higher last year than in 2022, while cocaine production rose 53 per cent from 1,738 tonnes to 2,600, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
These were the highest numbers since the UN started monitoring in 2001. Most Colombian cocaine is destined for the United States and Europe. Coca leaf production now spreads over 253,000 hectares (625,100 acres) in the country.
The trend has been upward since 2014 despite a US-based war on drugs worth millions of dollars. The areas of Colombia with the biggest increase in 2023 were the Cauca and Narino departments, both bastions of dissident groups of the FARC guerrilla army that disbanded in 2017.
