HER MAJESTY'S Customs and Excise (HMCE) reported on Monday that customs officers at Manchester airport, England, had discovered thousands of pounds worth of cocaine hidden in rum bottles.
The drug was suspended in solution and hidden in 12 bottles of rum cream liqueur, according to a report from HMCE.
Customs officers made the find while examining luggage of passengers coming off the flight from Kingston, Jamaica on Saturday. They estimate that the bottles contained between one and two kilos of cocaine.
Delroy Grant, a 29-year-old Jamaican, was arrested in connection with the find and has been charged with illegally importing a Class A drug into the UK.
He is scheduled to go before Manchester Magistrate's Court this week, said British Customs which did not give an occupation or an address for Grant in Jamaica.
On June 1 IonScan drug trace detection machines were installed at the two international airports in Jamaica - Sangster, Montego Bay and Norman Manley, east Kingston - to identify drug mules who swallow cocaine in pellets or hide it in body cavities or carry it elsewhere on their person, and have been detecting most of them. Since then, the smugglers have been resorting to other methods such as smuggling the cocaine in coconuts, in farm produce such as yams and pumpkins, in bottles labelled lotion, rum or shampoo or in their luggage.
