FAÇADE of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – An Indonesian woman suspected to be a drug mule was arrested at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Saturday afternoon after being caught with P40 million worth of alleged cocaine inside her baggage.
Teresita Roque, deputy collector for passenger services of the Bureau of Customs-NAIA said the suspect Dwi Wulandari, 31, arrived on board Emirates Airline flight EK0332 at around 5:10 p.m. last Saturday.
Roque said customs police who screened her luggage using a screening procedure called the “cobalt thiocyanate test, yielded positive results for possible presence of cocaine.”
Her black luggage bag aroused suspicions and was ordered opened by the customs inspector because it “sounded hollow.” Several hard and brown biscuit-like objects wrapped in carbon paper were found inside the bag.
The “biscuits,” which weighed a total of 8.7 kilos, were turned over to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency where a confirmatory test was set to be performed by government chemist Renalyn Barbacena, Roque said.
The BOC official said the suspect’s travel documents showed that after she left Indonesia for Peru, she took connecting flights to Brazil, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and finally the Philippines. She was booked on Jakarta-bound Philippine Airlines flight PR-535 for October 5.
The suspect, who spoke fluent English, denied being a drug mule, recounting that when she was in Peru, she met a man who sold her the bag for a small fee. She said the bag was empty when she put her belongings inside it.
The suspect was also turned over to the PDEA for the filing of appropriate charges, pending results of laboratory tests confirming her “biscuits” to be cocaine.