Woman with cocaine hidden in breast implants arrested at Madrid airport

A Venezuelan woman with 1.7kg of cocaine hidden in her breast implants has been arrested at Madrid airport after arriving on a flight from Colombia.

"During a check of passengers from a plane from Bogotá, the gestures and behaviour of a supposed tourist raised the suspicions of narcotics agents," police said on Friday.

After a baggage search revealed nothing, female officers conducted a body search of the 43-year-old woman and discovered "certain irregularities and deformations in both breasts".

At that moment, the suspect started to act nervously and "confessed that she was carrying implants with cocaine inside", police said.

The woman was taken to a hospital where the implants were removed and found to contain 1.7kg (3.75lb) of the drug.

Although unusual, it is not the first time Spanish police have seen drug smugglers using breast implants to try to beat detection.

In December 2012, a Panamanian woman arriving in Barcelona from Bogotá was found with 1.4kg of cocaine in her fake breasts. Her recent insertion wounds were still bleeding under bandages.

Other techniques have included drugs hidden under wigs, mixed into a cast put on a leg, and shaped and hardened into crockery.

Spain has a special police unit that checks so-called hot flights from the main drug-trafficking countries.

So far this year, in Madrid airport alone, the squad has seized about 500kg of cocaine and 6kg of heroin, and made 189 arrests.