A British woman faces drug-smuggling charges after she arrived at Miami International Airport with nearly 30 pounds of cocaine concealed in two dozen boxes of cake mix, authorities said.
Ayesha Olivia Niles of London was arrested Oct. 21 and turned 18 three days later, so she probably will be prosecuted as an adult,
The Miami Herald reported.
“This young woman had her 18th birthday in a foreign jail, far from her home and her family, because she thought she could smuggle almost 30 pounds of cocaine through Miami,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said Wednesday. “Sadly, she almost becomes a poster child for how easily the drug trade can corrupt our youth.”
Niles arrived in Miami on a night flight from Jamaica. Federal customs agents selected her for screening and discovered 24 boxes of cake mix in her two suitcases. Police said they found cocaine totaling 29.3 pounds inside the boxes.
The teen said she didn’t know what was in the boxes but “suspected that the activity she was involved in was suspicious,” the police report said.
Niles was booked on first-degree felony charges of trafficking cocaine and importation of a controlled substance.
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