Man hid 150g heroin in children's book
KUALA LUMPUR: A Malay-sian who tried to smuggle heroin into Australia by hiding it in a children's story book was nabbed by Australian Customs yesterday.
The 56-year-old man had made a little compartment inside the book and stuffed 150g of heroin in it.
On arrival at the Sydney International Airport from Phuket, Thailand, he was stopped by a Customs officer for behaving in a suspicious manner.
"After a thorough check of the suspect's baggage, officers found a book with a colourful cover.
"When the book was opened, the authorities found a bag of white powder," a Bukit Aman police spokesman said.
"Checks revealed that the powder was heroin. It was sent to a chemical lab for further tests to determine the weight and quality of the heroin."
The man has been detained and is expected to be charged with attempting to smuggle drugs. He can be jailed for up to 25 years or fined A$550,000 (RM1.6 million) if found guilty.
This is the second overseas drug smuggling case involving a Malaysian in the past two weeks.
On July 5, a woman was nabbed in Austria for attempting to smuggle 7kg of cannabis into the country.
It is learnt that the woman, a 33-year-old housewife from Johor, was detained while attempting to sneak the drug past Customs at the Vienna International Airport.
She was apparently a drug mule who had been paid a fee to smuggle the cannabis into Austria. She has been detained for further investigations and is expected to be charged soon.