Apparently cocaine is sometimes smuggled as bags of white powder. (Credit: Eitan Abramovich / AFP / Illustration photo)
BEIRUT — Lebanese Customs announced Saturday that they have foiled an attempt to smuggle cocaine from Brazil and arrested at Beirut airport a traveler who had ingested "several capsules containing cocaine."
According to the state-run National News Agency, the passenger, a Brazilian national who stopped over in Turkey en route to Beirut, is suspected of having swallowed "a large quantity of capsules containing drugs" to bring them into Lebanon. He was arrested by customs officers and then handed over to the central anti-drug office of the Internal Security Forces.
Several attempts to traffic drugs from or through Lebanon have been thwarted in recent months.
Police announced Friday that they had foiled a smuggling operation involving some 10 million Captagon pills hidden in a shipment of rubber carbon in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, and destined for Senegal and Saudi Arabia.