Today in creative ways to transport your drug stash, we meet Andres Josue Leal Valle, a traveler from Mexico City, who allegedly arrived at JFK airport last week with three suitcases and a carry-on bag stuffed with bottles of olive oil and vinegar that also happened to contain 11 pounds of liquid cocaine. U.S. Customs and Border Control agents discovered one of the bottles when the suspect handed over his bags for inspection, and thought the mixture looked a little funky. Officials took Leal Valle and his luggage back to a room for a private search and detected a weird odor coming from the bottles. When agents tested the mixture, it turned out Leal Valle had used illegal narcotics as his secret ingredient.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Control, the approximate street value of the cocaine in the “illegal salad dressing” was $194,000. It’s unclear if the suspect tried to use the excuse that he just misread a recipe for poppy-seed vinagrette.
