A woman has been arrested in Indonesia’s Bali after allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine into the resort island using a sex toy and hiding drugs in her underwear, police said Tuesday.
The 42-year-old Peruvian, identified only by her initials N.S., arrived at Bali’s international airport from Qatar on Aug. 12 when authorities became suspicious.
“The customs officers suspected her behavior, and after consulting with the police, they did a further check on her,” Bali police narcotics unit director, Radiant, who like many Indonesians has one name, said at a press conference.
The officers allegedly found 3.1 pounds of cocaine inside a sex toy hidden in her genitals and in her underwear. Police also accused her of smuggling dozens of ecstasy pills.
The Peruvian woman told police she was hired to transport the drugs to Indonesia by a man she met on the dark web in April in return for $20,000, said Radiant.
The woman has been charged under Indonesia’s harsh narcotics law and could face the death penalty if found guilty. Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are sometimes executed by firing squad.
Last month, a Bali court sentenced a 46-year-old Argentine to seven years in prison after she was found guilty of smuggling 244 grams of cocaine wrapped with a condom that she hid inside her genitals.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. There are dozens of traffickers on death row in the country, including a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother.
Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one Indonesian and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad.
In June, three British nationals accused of smuggling over two pounds of cocaine into Indonesia were charged in Bali. They avoided the death penalty last month, the BBC reported, when they were told by a judge they would only serve a 12-month sentence.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has moved to repatriate several high-profile inmates, all sentenced for drug offenses, back to their home countries.
Frenchman Serge Atlaoui returned to France in February after Jakarta and Paris agreed a deal to repatriate him on “humanitarian grounds” because he was ill.
In December, Indonesia took Mary Jane Veloso off death row and returned her to the Philippines. It also sent the five remaining members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring, who were serving heavy prison sentences, back to Australia.
According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, 96 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, before Veloso’s release.
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