US woman arrested on charges of cocaine smuggling

SYDNEY - An American woman, who was travelling with her two children, has been arrested at Sydney Airport with around two kg of cocaine, a media report said Saturday.

Customs officials stopped the woman, 44, and her two children to x-ray their luggage when they arrived here on a flight from Miami via San Francisco Thursday, the Australian news agency AAP reported.

The screening revealed the drugs hidden in the lining of the woman’s suitcase.

The woman was charged by the Australian Federal Police with procuring children for importing or exporting marketable quantities of border controlled drugs or border controlled plants — the maximum penalty for this offence is life imprisonment and/or a $825,000 fine.

Her arrest followed the seizure of 2.5 kg of cocaine and arrest of a 23-year-old woman by US authorities Thursday in Miami.