$55K Worth Of Heroin Found In 3 Bags Of Coffee At Dulles Airport: CBP

DULLES, VA — A 31-year-old Guatemalan woman is facing felony narcotics charges after customs officers found nearly two pounds of heroin hidden in a courier shipment at Washington Dulles International Airport on Sunday.

After arriving on Sunday morning on a flight from Guatemala City, Guatemala, Maria Jose Recinos Rodriguez, who was a food courier, was asked to undergo a routine secondary examination. Transnational criminal organizations sometimes try to bring drugs into the country in courier shipments, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

During the examination, CBP officers found three bags of coffee that contained a white substance, which later tested to be heroin hydrochloride, according to reports. Weighing a combined 798 grams, or one pound, 12 ounces, the heroin had a street value of about $55,000.

CBP turned over Recinos Rodriguez and the drugs to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police officers, who charged her with felony narcotics possession with intent to distribute, according to CBP.

“Drug trafficking organizations attempt all manner of concealment to smuggle their dangerous drugs unto the United States, including concealing it inside a seemingly innocuous courier shipment of food, but Customs and Border Protection officers prove time and again their proficiency in exposing those concealment methods,” said Marc E. Calixte, CBP’s area port director for the Area Port of Washington, D.C. “CBP continues to work with our law enforcement partners to help protect our communities from the scourge of heroin and to help hold perpetrators accountable.”