A 91-Year-Old Is Accused Of Smuggling 4.5 Kilos Of Cocaine

While returning from a trip to India to meet some online friends, 91-year-old retired oral surgeon Victor Twartz gladly accepted a bag full of presents to bring back home for someone in Australia.

The gifts were in fact 4.5 kilos of cocaine, pressed inside several bars of soap. Twartz was stopped when he arrived at the Sydney Airport, when the 27 bars of soap he had packaged in his luggage triggered positive readings for drugs.

According to ABC News Australia, the man had no reason to believe it wasn’t actually soap:

“It was soap — I opened it up and scratched it and it certainly was soap but it had some white streaks in it, which I am told was cocaine,” Victor Twartz told 7.30 after appearing in court this morning.

The cocaine is worth more than $1 million and could earn Twartz a lifetime prison sentence. The man’s son insists his father is a devout Seventh Day Adventist who is against drug use. He has no criminal background.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m very glad that Customs had found it because I’m very against the young people taking drugs and it means that that much was stopped from getting to them,” Twartz said.

Twartz appeared in court on Tuesday, in a three-piece tweed suit and matching hat. He was released on bail, presumably because he was the victim of a drug scam and not because he was so nattily dressed. He will appear in court again on October 6.

Australian Federal Police urge people returning from abroad to practice vigilance with their luggage, not accepting strange gifts of large quantities of soap, for example, or leaving your bag unattended. There have been 40 similar drug arrests in Australia, but only two thirds of the accused were cleared of wrongdoing. While it seems that Victor Twartz was the victim of an organized crime scam, he could very well be convicted and end up setting the record for oldest drug trafficker.

(Via Mashable)