Two Colombian women were arrested this Friday at the Tocumen international airport in Panama when they tried to travel to Spain with cocaine hidden under their wigs, reported the Attorney General’s Office of the Central American country.
At first, the Panamanian drug prosecutor, Xiomara Rodríguez, reported on the arrest, at the air terminal, of a Colombian woman from a flight from her country to Madrid.
According to the official version, the police approached this person after suspecting his hairstyle. After doing a scanner test, the agents were able to observe that between the braids of her natural hair and a wig that she was wearing, she hid drug tablets attached to her head.
Rodríguez indicated that the woman, of whom no further details have been given, was wearing “68 cylindrical black wrappers with white powder (inside)” under her wig.
This form of drug trafficking is “unprecedented” in Panama, Rodríguez added, in a video posted on the Twitter account of the Panama Attorney General’s Office.
The Panamanian police published on their Twitter account a photo where two agents are seen holding a person, all of them from behind, behind a table with the packages of the alleged drug.
Hours later, the Attorney General’s Office (prosecutor’s office) announced the arrest of “a second woman” with “67 packages containing suspected drugs” hidden under another wig. She also came from Colombia and was destined for Spain.
Although the official information does not specify the nationality of this second detainee, sources from the Attorney General’s Office confirmed to AFP that she is another Colombian.
According to the authorities, both women will be brought before a court of guarantees for alleged international drug trafficking.
Within the curious modalities of drug trafficking, in 2021 the Panamanian police caught, on the perimeter of a prison, the “narcogato”, a feline that carried cocaine, crack and marijuana tied to its neck, presumably to introduce it in the prison.
Panama is the gateway to Central America for the drug that goes from South America, mainly Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, to the United States, the world’s largest consumer of this drug.
However, Central American authorities have warned of a significant increase in drug trafficking to Europe through, mainly, the Caribbean ports of the region.
