A man who swallowed 67 packets of cocaine was caught by customs officials in the UK after they noticed his bloated stomach.
Almost 1kg of cocaine was found in the stomach of 30-year-old student Fidelis Ozouli after he was detained at Manchester Airport, the Daily Mail newspaper reports.
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The staggering amount is one of the largest quantities of the drug ever found internally in the UK.
The highest recorded amount is 1.5kg of cocaine found inside a smuggler's stomach in 2003.
Ozouli told a Manchester Court he did not know the packages he swallowed contained drugs.
"I just did not know what they were...I thought I was swallowing something else to take into Britain for a pal," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.
In response, Judge Thomas Gilbart told Ozouli his excuse was "fantastical" and that he did not believe it.
Mike O'Grady, assistant director of criminal investigation for Britain's Revenue and Customs, told the newspaper the cocaine found in Ozouli's stomach was significantly purer than what was normally found in smuggler's stomachs.
"Swallowing any drugs puts the courier at risk, but with purity levels so high he was putting himself at considerable risk of death," he said.
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