Italian police thwart underwear drug smugglers

Border guards at Rome airport have uncovered eight kilos of high-grade cocaine with a street value of 2.5 million euros ($3.2 million) hidden in the underwear of two passengers coming from Brazil. The drugs were wrapped in foil and packed into a bra, and two large girdles worn by the two Brazilians, a 23-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, who came from Sao Paulo and said they were visiting Italy for tourism. “Customs police were on the alert because the couple initially stayed close until they reached the border controls, when they took their distances and pretended not to know each other,” the police said in a statement yesterday. A police spokesman said the arrests took place earlier in the week. Border guards at Rome’s Fiumicino airport regularly thwart bizarre attempts at cocaine trafficking, often by passengers on flights from South America. Drugs have been found hidden inside baggage trolleys, disguised in crates of chalk statues and even in a diplomatic pouch from Ecuador.