Nativity Scene Yields Cocaine Cache in Madrid
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MADRID — Four Colombian men were arrested after Spanish police made an unusual holiday haul--a 12-figure Nativity scene filled with 6.6 pounds of pressed cocaine worth $2 million.
Police said Saturday that agents had discovered the drug inside the infant Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other Nativity figures.
Agents followed a Colombian man suspected of being a major contact in drug-smuggling operations to Madrid’s Barajas Airport on Thursday, police said. There, they said he met a suspected drug courier arriving on a flight from Bogota, Colombia.
The two then went to an apartment in Madrid where police later found the Nativity scene along with $52,631 in cash, which they also seized.
Police said Luis Eduardo Fernandez Quijano, 21, and Jorge Enrique Restrepo Jaramillo, 49, were arrested on drug-trafficking charges along with two other men who were not identified.
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