Joint operation breaks cocaine ring
An investigation by Swiss, French and Dutch authorities has led to the arrests of five people accused of smuggling cocaine into Switzerland, Vaud police have said.
Border officials in Vallorbe stopped two Cameroonian women aboard a train from Paris to Lausanne in April 2008 after they were spotted in unseasonably warm clothes.
The women were wearing body packs containing around two kilograms of the drug. One of the pair admitted forcing an infant travelling with them to swallow a pack.
Vaud police confirmed on Wednesday that the joint investigation had been carried out over nine months, with a third woman arrested in Geneva in July and another held in Paris.
A Vaud investigating magistrate has launched a process to extradite a 37-year-old Nigerian man from The Netherlands. He is accused of orchestrating the smuggling ring in which 33 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of SFr3.3 million ($2.9 million) were brought into Switzerland.
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