If you’re going to try out a new hairstyle, don’t cheap out on your stylist.
For one Colombian man traveling internationally in Spain, that lesson became abundantly clear when security officers at Barcelona’s El Prat airport pulled off his hairpiece, revealing half a kilo of packaged cocaine sitting atop his bald head.
According to the New York Post, the still unnamed drug mule arrived at airport security radiating nervous energy, and when local officers noticed his unusually-lifted hair piece (which looked straight out of a Bump Its infomercial), they pulled him aside for extra questioning. Eventually, they discovered a half a brick of blow sitting right under his poorly-affixed toupee.
“There is no limit to the inventiveness of drug traffickers trying to mock controls,” police said in a statement.
Police dubbed the smuggling bust “operation toupee” and said that the cocaine seized could have been worth as much as $34,000 when broken down to street prices. Adding insult to injury, cops also took a series of photos of the man — with the hairpiece and without — that have quickly gone viral across social media and given new meaning to the term “snatched wig.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time that drug smugglers have gotten bold with their concealment techniques, with cocaine mules previously disguising their product in plastics, hollowed legs, and more. Even weed smugglers have been known to get cheeky with their often fruitless border-crossing attempts.
As for the bald man transporting cocaine like hair plugs, he was arrested by Spanish police on drug trafficking charges. Hopefully, he learned a useful lesson about both hair styling and stash spots.
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