NEW YORK, March 4 (UPI) -- A woman accused of smuggling $20,000 worth of heroin inside her body was expected to go before a federal magistrate in New York this week, police said.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York became suspicious of Afolake Awoyemi, 42, a Nigerian national, after she exited an Air France flight from Paris last week because she seemed nervous when she said she was pregnant when asked, The New York Daily News reported Sunday.
Awoyemi got a pat-down search, then a partial strip-search when customs officials felt a bulge in her groin area, the Department of Homeland Security complaint said.
The search revealed pellets of brown powder that tested positive for heroin, the complaint said. Federal officers then administered a pregnancy test that was negative.
An X-ray indicated more pellets were in Awoyemi's intestines, the Daily News said. By the end of the day Wednesday she passed about 25 pellets of heroin into a special toilet.
A Homeland Security spokesman said Awoyemi was expected to go before a federal magistrate Monday.
Federal officials said the heroin could sell for about $20,000 on the street.
