Body packers

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]Vidit Bhargava, M.B.B.S [2]

Body packing

Abdominal X-ray showing swallowed packages of cocaine.

Abdominal X-ray showing drug packets.

The practice of transporting goods outside the body is called body packing; this is done by a person usually called a mule, or bait. This method is, in general, rarely used today. However, some narcotics-trafficking organizations such as the Mexican Cartels will purposely send 1 or 2 people with drugs on the outside of their body to purposely be caught, so that the authorities are occupied while dozens of mules pass by undetected with drugs inside their body. But even these diversion tactics are becoming less and less prevalent as airport security increases.

Swallowing has been used for the transportation of heroin, cocaine, and sometimes for ecstasy.

A swallower typically fills tiny balloons, often made with multilayered condoms or more sophisticated hollow pellets, with small quantities of a drug, usually heroin or cocaine. These balloons may be swallowed or may be hidden in other natural or artificial body cavities as the rectum, a colostomy, or vagina.

The swallower then attempts to cross international borders, excrete the balloons, and then sell the drugs for profit. It is far more common for the swallower to be making the trip on behalf of a drug lord or drug dealer. Swallowers are often impoverished and agree to transport the drugs in exchange for money or other favors. In fewer cases, the drug dealers can attempt extortion against people by threatening physical harm against friends or family, but the more common practice is for swallowers to willingly accept the job in exchange for big payoffs. An increasingly popular type of swallowing involves having the drug in the form of liquid-filled balloons or condoms/packages. These are impossible to detect unless the airport has high-sensitivity X-Ray equipment. Most of the major airports in Europe, Canada, and the US have these machines. Note that a liquid mixture of water and the drug will most likely not be detected using a standard X-Ray Machine. As reported in Lost Rights by James Bovard: "Nigerian drug lords have employed an army of 'swallowers', those who will swallow as many as 150 balloons and smuggle drugs into the United States. Given the per capita yearly income of Nigeria is $2,100, Nigerians can collect as much as $15,000 per trip."