A Canadian woman was arrested at an airport in Australia after $12 million worth of meth was found in her luggage — despite elaborate effort to thwart detection: it was encased in plastic and wrapped in towels soaked in vinegar and layered with coffee beans, Australian officials said. The discovery in a suitcase from Vancouver is more evidence of Canada being a significant source country for the flood of drugs targeting Australia, where street drugs command higher retail prices. The 24-year-old Canadian, who was not named by Australian authorities, arrived at Brisbane International Airport on a flight from Fiji after starting her journey in Vancouver, authorities said.
When she arrived in Brisbane on July 28, she was sent for a baggage examination. Scans of a suitcase revealed anomalies inside. Several packages found inside were encased in heavy plastic wrap that had been further wrapped in towels that had been soaked in vinegar and layered with coffee beans, according to the Australian Border Force (ABF).
The odd packaging was likely designed to mask the scent of the illicit cargo from drug-sniffing dogs trained to find banned narcotics. A field test of the contents returned a presumptive positive result for methamphetamine and weighed 14.4 kilograms, officials said.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) then charged the woman with one count of importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Police .