By way of Kathryn ArmstrongBBC News2 hours agoImage supply, Hong Kong GovernmentImage caption, The suspect says the wheelchair the medicine had been present in was once given to him by means of a chum to borrowOfficials at Hong Kong Global Airport have exposed 11kg of suspected cocaine hidden within the cushions of an electrical wheelchair. The haul, value and an estimated $1.5m (£1.26m), was once discovered when a 51-year-old guy was once going thru customs clearance on Saturday.The person, who arrived from the Caribbean nation of Sint Maarten by the use of Paris on Saturday, has been arrested. He may face existence in jail if discovered to blame of trafficking a deadly drug.In keeping with customs officers, the suspect had purchased the wheelchair into the rustic as one in every of two items of checked luggage. Additional exam was once ordered when workforce was suspicious and so they discovered proof that its seat cushion and backrest were re-stitched. The person, who isn’t from Hong Kong and has mobility problems, reportedly instructed officers that he was once the director of a automotive condo corporate and that the wheelchair were loaned to him by means of a chum. An investigation into the incident has been introduced. Customs officers mentioned in line with the invention that they might build up exams on guests from “high-risk areas” to struggle transnational drug trafficking actions. In keeping with their newest statistics, the choice of instances detected in customs exams involving bad medicine in 2022 was once 931, up from 906 the former yr. Some 178 folks had been arrested over comparable offences final yr. It isn’t the primary time that medicine were discovered hidden in a wheelchair at an airport. In November, officers in New York seized $450,000-worth of cocaine discovered within the wheels of a lady’s wheelchair. In September 2022, just about $1.6m-worth of cocaine was once discovered filled into the upholstery of a motorised wheelchair within the Italian town of Milan.
