Guess who was used to smuggle drugs into the United States?
Babies.
ABC News reported Thursday that US agents had unearthed a drug ring that used babies to smuggle in cocaine and heroin.
The idea was simple enough. The drugs were embedded in cans of baby formula in the belief that women with babies were less likely to attract attention at airports.
ABC News said 'more than 200 pounds of cocaine and 13 pounds of heroin' were thus transported to Chicago, worth an estimated $10 million.
Each courier received about $4,000.
'They were taking the milk out of the formula can, washing the can out and inserting with a hypodermic needle the liquid cocaine into the can, soldering the lid back on,' US customs agent Pete Darling told ABC News.
The racket was busted some months ago.
Drug agents bust the ring after they discovered that women with babies from a particular ghetto in Chicago were traveling to Panama. One agent 'pulled one of the women aside, looked at her luggage and noticed that the weight of the formula can did not match the weight indicated on the labels,' ABC News reported. 'An X-ray revealed that the can contained pellets of cocaine and heroin.'
Agents then traveled to the Chicago ghetto and discovered that poor parents were enticed -- initially with milk and clothes, then with money -- to become couriers for the drugs.
Some of the babies were 'rented' from their parents, others traveled with their parents who ferried cocaine and heroin into the US.
Forty-five trips were made and 22 babies used to help transport the drugs, ABC News said.
The couriers received between five to 10 years in jail last week; parents who rented their babies got jail sentences 'that ranged between 10 months and eight years.'
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