A body scan at the airport revealed suspicious shapes inside Nwankwo. He was then taken to a hospital for a CT scan where dozens of concealed packages were identified inside him.
A man who swallowed 67 wraps of cocaine before taking a flight from Brazil to London has been jailed for four years.
Samuel Nwankwo, 27, was stopped by Border Police at Terminal 3 London Heathrow as he alighted from a Latam Airlines flight from Sau Paulo on 11 February this year.
Nwankwo had been to the South American country for five days and had no checked baggage with him. He claimed he had been visiting his wife and was short on annual leave.
A body scan at the airport revealed suspicious shapes inside Nwankwo. He was then taken to a hospital for a CT scan where dozens of concealed packages were identified inside him.
Today [Friday, 16 August] Nwankwo was jailed for four years at Isleworth Crown Court and the drugs were also ordered to be destroyed. He had previously pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent evasion on the importation of a prohibited Class A drug.
Cindy Fayefunmi, a Senior Crown Prosecutor in CPS London North, said: “Importing drugs by ingestion is illegal and could lead to lethal consequences. Nwankwo was lucky to be alive after swallowing such a large quantity of cocaine.
“The CPS takes the trafficking of illegal drugs extremely seriously and will prosecute those who flout drug rules.”
The cocaine found in Nwankwo equated to 67 'swallower' wraps with the average purity of 77.1 percent. The estimated value of the amount he had was £82,210.
This case was investigated by the UK's National Crime Agency.