MIAMI, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Detectives at Miami International Airport busted a London teen who was allegedly carrying 30 pounds of cocaine concealed in 24 boxes of cake mix.
Prosecutors said Wednesday Ayesha Olivia Niles, who turned 18 after her Oct. 21 arrest, will likely be tried as an adult, The Miami Herald reported.
Niles, who arrived in Miami from Jamaica, was selected by federal customs agents for extra screening. They found the cake-mix boxes in her two suitcases.
Niles told detectives she didn't know she was smuggling the drugs but admitted "she suspected that the activity she was involved in was suspicious but she did not question it," the report says.
"Because of the enhanced screening at the airport, it's rare to get people transporting that much drugs, let alone a girl that young," said Miami-Dade Police Maj. Charles Nanney.
"This young woman had her 18th birthday in a foreign jail, far from her home and her family, because she thought she could smuggle almost 30 pounds of cocaine through Miami," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Wednesday. "Sadly, she almost becomes a poster child for how easily the drug trade can corrupt our youth."
