A 20-year-old American woman continued to be questioned last night by gardaí after customs officers arrested her for trying to smuggle €70,000 worth of cocaine into the country concealed in her beehive hairstyle.
Customs officers at Cork airport detained the woman at about 1.50pm yesterday, shortly after she disembarked on a flight from Amsterdam, having started her journey in Lagos in Nigeria.
It is understood the young woman had concealed a kilo of cocaine wrapped in black cotton packets and had tied them to her hair before fitting a false beehive hairpiece over the drugs.
According to a customs source, the discovery of the drugs was down to "good old-fashioned customs detection" and officers had to cut off some of the woman's hair to recover the drugs believed destined for the Cork market.
It was the first time customs officers at Cork airport discovered drugs being smuggled into the country in this way, though drug traffickers have begun varying their modes of smuggling.
Earlier this month, customs officers apprehended two Dutch nationals at Cork airport after finding one man with cocaine strapped to his waist. They then discovered both he and his colleague had ingested up to one kilo of cocaine.
Both men were arrested and taken to Cork University Hospital, where one man spent a weekend and the other man five days as gardaí waited for the drugs - contained in small pellets - to pass through their systems.
Yesterday, customs officers handed over the 20-year-old woman, who has been living in Nigeria for a number of years, to gardaí. She was taken then to Togher Garda station for questioning about the drugs haul.