A 26-year-old Guyanese woman who swallowed several cocaine pellets and hid a package of the drug in her vagina has found herself facing jail time in New York.

According to court documents filed in the New York Eastern District Court, the woman, Alicia Coppin, travelled to New York from Guyana on September 11 on a Caribbean Airlines flight.

The woman was subjected to an x-ray which revealed the presence of foreign bodies inside her abdominal area and pelvis. Coppin was taken by customs and border agents to a medical facility and a package which later tested positive for cocaine was removed from her body cavity.

The woman also excreted cocaine pellets. She is awaiting a court hearing.

On Thursday, another woman, a 46-year-old East Ruimveldt hairdresser, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $2.3M after pleading guilty to being in possession of over two pounds of cocaine, which she was trying to sneak on board a flight to New York.

Karen Stuffle, who was sentenced by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, admitted that on Saturday last at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri, she attempted to traffic 1.142 kilograms of cocaine.

Konyo Sandiford of the Customs Anti-narcotics Unit (CANU) told the court that on the day in question, Stuffle was an outgoing passenger on a Caribbean Airlines flight BW526, bound for JFK, New York; when she went to the check-in area, she was first cautioned by a CANU officer before being taken by the said officer into a room where she was subjected to a cavity search.

That search, Sandiford said, uncovered the cocaine wrapped in plastic in Stuffle’s vagina.
On realising that the game was up, Stuffle reportedly told the CANU rank, “That is all the cocaine I got.”

But when she was taken to a city hospital to have an X-ray done, it showed that she had foreign objects in her stomach, and was given a dose of laxative to help pass them out. Two days later, while under guard at the hospital, Stuffle reportedly excreted 100 pellets of cocaine.

The prosecutor disclosed that three persons are currently in custody and they are hunting for a fourth suspect.

Before handing down the sentence, the chief magistrate asked Stuffle if she had anything to say to the court. At that, she broke down in tears and quietly said, “I’m sorry.”