Chicago – Federal authorities have accused a woman from New York from 31 pounds of cocaine to the United States in the seat of her electric wheelchair. Elaine Perez was arrested on Saturday at O’Hare International Airport when she entered the country during a flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to a criminal complaint that was filed on Monday.
Unbelievable, Perez was previously convicted of federal cocaine smuggles for bringing more than 6 pounds of cocaine on a flight to New York City from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, in 2021.
On Saturday Perez left her flight in O’Hare with plans to connect to Newark, according to the federal complaint. She wouldn’t make her connection.
Officials said she drove her electric wheelchair to the Customs Inspection area, where, because of her background in the drug smuggling industry, agents gave her to a ‘secondary inspection area’, the complaint said.
While agents searched her hand luggage, Perez would have told them that she knew they had stopped her because she was previously caught smuggling drugs. After they had not found anything in her bag, the agents focused their attention on her wheelchair, the complaint said.
Immediately they noticed that the seats “seemed newer compared to the rest of the wheelchair, as if they were recently replaced,” said the complaint. So the agents of X -ray -like wheelchair and discovered “anomalies in density and colors that are not consistent with X -rays of normal damping.”
Given the unusual X-rays and a positive reaction of a drug sniffing dog, an agent has carried out a “intrusive exam” by drilling in the wheelchair cushion. The tip of the drill was reportedly covered with white powder when the agent removed it from the chair. That powder tested positively on cocaine in two field tests, the complaint said.
Agents tore open the chair and are said to have found 14 packages with white powder that tested positively for cocaine. They weighed just over 14 kilograms or about 31 pounds. The complaint said that every kilo between $ 17,000 and $ 20,000 is worth.
The agents told Perez that she was being held and asked if she needed a wheelchair or a walking stick to come to the waiting area. She refused both chances and said she could walk, officials said.
Perez initially said she would talk to researchers, but the complaint said she had hurt herself after hearing the Miranda warning.
‘What do I want to talk to you about? I’m already f***** Up, “she said to say an agent.
The O’Hare incident is no different than an experience that Perez had on September 21, 2021 at JFK International Airport in New York City. The Customs inspectors would have found 2.89 kilograms of cocaine under false bottom panels in her suitcase.
Perez would have told the agents in New York that she agreed to bring the cocaine from the Dominican Republic to the US in exchange for $ 7,000. She had to be paid upon delivery.
Her lawyer in New York told the court that she was born in the Dominican Republic from an alcoholic mother who left her house for days without food alone. In her twenty, Perez “touched what she thought was her low point when she was an overdose of fentanyl” that she thought was cocaine, the lawyer said.
Perez’s daughter found her unconscious on the floor. The incident led Perez to lose custody of her children and she moved back to the Dominican Republic.
“It was in the Dominican Republic where she was approached and offered money to import drugs in the United States,” said her lawyer.
The federal judge in New York City sentenced her to the time that was about nine months.
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