There are a number of effective ways to smuggle cocaine through an airport, but it would appear that strapping it to your legs isn’t one of them. Unfortunately, Juan Carlos Galan Luperon learned that lesson the hard way.
According to the New York Daily News, the 28-year-old Manhattan man was busted at JFK airport after trying to sneak 10 pounds of cocaine past custom agents.
Luperon, who was arriving from the Dominican Republic, appeared nervous when he approached customs, according to a spokesperson from the agency. Officers noticed that he was “bursting out of his pants,” which probably had something to do with all the cocaine he had taped to his thighs and his calves.
“Our officers noticed that his pants appeared to be rather snug,” public affairs specialist at U.S. Customs and Border Protection Anthony Bucci told CBS New York station WINS-AM.
The total value of the drugs that were seized is $164,000, Bucci said. Leon Hayward, acting director of CBP’s New York field operation, said that the seizure is “another example of our CBP officers being ever vigilant in protecting the United States from the distribution of these illicit drugs.”
Luperon will face drug smuggling charges in Brooklyn federal court.