A US man who swallowed more than 1kg of cocaine in 62 condoms was caught when he passed but didn't flush away 25 of them and instead tried to smuggle them through customs with coffee grounds, a court has heard.
Mark Henderson, 41, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years when he was sentenced in Auckland District Court on Thursday on smuggling charges, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Henderson, a US national who lives in Panama, will be deported on release from prison.
The court was told Henderson travelled to Peru in May. He was paid US$16,000 (NZ$20,250) to smuggle the drugs on a flight to New Zealand.
During the flight Henderson excreted 25 of the packages and instead of flushing them, he put them in a paper bag and covered them with coffee grounds.
Customs officers found the drugs at the airport and held Henderson until he passed the rest of the condoms, containing 1.042kg of the class A drug with a street value of more than $360,000.
Henderson told officials he had carried out the drug run because of financial problems and because he thought his wife and children in Panama were in danger.
Judge Alison Sinclair said Henderson was a courier, not the head of an international drug ring.
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