French national held with $122,600 in cocaine at Piarco

A French na­tion­al was held af­ter Cus­toms of­fi­cers found 3.065 kilo­grammes of co­caine in his lug­gage at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Thurs­day.

The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion said the drugs were dis­cov­ered dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing of­fi­cers from its In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, Ca­nine En­force­ment Unit and Pi­ar­co Pre­ven­tive.

The pas­sen­ger was se­lect­ed for sec­ondary screen­ing and ques­tion­ing as he pre­pared to board an out­bound British Air­ways flight.

A de­tailed search of his lug­gage un­cov­ered 79 white pack­ages wrapped in ball-like forms.

Field tests con­firmed the sub­stance was co­caine, with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $122,600.