Bolivian mother, daughters arrested for cocaine smuggling

Bolivian mother, daughte

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
A Bolivian mother and two of her daughters were arrested at a Tel Aviv hotel on Monday night on suspicion of swallowing cocaine before boarding a flight to Israel from South America and smuggling two kilograms of the drug into the country. Tel Aviv police's Central Unit, which led the investigation, learned of a Bolivian-Israeli cocaine smuggling route recently, and suspect that the three women have made the run several times over the past months. After landing at Ben Gurion Airport on Monday evening, the women arrived at the hotel, and were promptly arrested in their room. All three had excreted bags of cocaine in their hotel room, police said. "We suspected that the women had more drugs in their bodies, and they were therefore taken to a hospital," police said in a statement. Doctors found a large quantity of cocaine in the womens' stomach, "which gradually began coming out," police said. Police obtained details on the suspected drug buyers who were set to meet the women, describing them as a 61-year-old father and his 35-year-old son. Under police watch, the women were sent to meet the alleged buyers, and officers observed the drugs and cash exchange hands on Tel Aviv's Ben Yehuda Street. The men were then arrested, and found to be carrying tens of thousands of Euros intended for drug payments, according to police. A "luxurious" motorcycle belonging to the suspects was also seized in the raid. "The women have done this before. They hand over their cash to a South American drugs cartel," police said. "We suspect this is a wide ranging South American cocaine smuggling network, and these two smugglers are only one part of it," police added.