This year has seen many drug trafficking crimes take place – from 18-year-olds to even pensioners – but this specific case reveals just how far some smugglers would go
A woman has been arrested after police allegedly caught her wearing a fake pregnancy belly stuffed with cocaine.
However when she was detained, it wasn’t at an airport; she was travelling on public transport. She’d just boarded a vehicle heading to Bogotá, coming from Nariño in Colombia. But, a criminal investigation unit stopped her in the Ciudad 2000 neighbourhood of Cali, where they found 5,600 doses of cocaine in her ‘pregnancy bump’, police said. Authorities have called this a worrying new tactic, as these fake bellies are reportedly being bought from abroad, costing over £500, and then adapted for smuggling drugs. Criminals think people are less likely to question a pregnant woman.
Authorities have called this a worrying new tactic, as these fake bellies are reportedly being bought from abroad, costing over £500, and then adapted for smuggling drugs. Criminals think people are less likely to question a pregnant woman.
When you’re posing as someone who’s vulnerable or expecting, for the most part, security backs off. It’s a new cover built to avoid suspicion while playing on empathy.
“This is a concerning new tactic,” an official involved in the investigation told local press.
“These false bellies are not just props – they’re part of a calculated effort to exploit human empathy and avoid suspicion.”
And this isn’t the first time pregnancy has been used as a disguise, in the past fake bumps have been used to smuggle phones and even weapons revealing how far traffickers are willing to go to commit crimes.
The woman was immediately handed over to the Nation’s Attorney General’s Office, and now investigators are looking into whether she’s part of a larger smuggling operation running between Nariño and Bogotá – one of Colombia’s busiest trafficking corridors.
However this isn’t just some wild one-off. These kinds of methods, the bold disguises, even the fake bumps are becoming more common.
There’s been a noticeable rise in drug trafficking arrests – including Brits across places like Spain, Ghana and Asia.
It’s still clear whether criminal gangs are allegedly targeting people they think will get away with it, or whether it’s to do with age, appearance, or just the fact they blend in on holiday.