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In Miami, we know a thing or two about cocaine smuggling. This summer, authorities at Miami Seaport seized $7.3 million of the potent powder hidden in a shipping container. Downtown was practically built on blow. And if you look hard enough, you’ll find retired traffickers all around this city.
There are signs, however, that Miami is loosing its mantle as cocaine central. One country that is taking its place atop the narco-podium is Venezuela.
Just this weekend, Argentine police arrested ten men dressed in identical tracksuits and claiming to be members of the Venezuelan Olympic weightlifting team. The men were about to board a flight for Brazil when body scans revealed they were full of liquid cocaine capsules.
According to the BBC, cops had been tipped off by a Venezuelan woman claiming her weightlifter nephew had been recruited to smuggle drugs.
A four-month investigation led authorities to the Buenos Aires international airport, where the nephew and nine others also posing as members of the Venezuelan national weightlifting team were about to board a flight for Portugal via Brazil.
Body scans showed the men were bulging with more than mere muscle. Each faux weightlifter had swallowed several capsules full of suspected drugs.
Once those capsules were excreted, they tested positive for liquid cocaine.
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