New Zealand Customs arrest 2 after cocaine found in travel pillow

A Dutch national and an Australian have been charged with smuggling cocaine valued at 600, 000 NZ dollars (500,167 U.S. dollars) hidden in a travel pillow, New Zealand Customs officials announced Wednesday.

Customs officers stopped the 49-year-old Dutchman, who lives in Thailand, at Auckland Airport after he arrived from Chile early on Sunday, said a statement from New Zealand Customs.

The man had traveled from Thailand to Brazil for a day, and then spent a week in Bolivia before coming to Auckland via Chile.

A baggage examination revealed a soft travel pillow containing 98 packages of cocaine, while CT scans also revealed the man was carrying two more packages internally, bringing the total amount of the drug to about a kilogram.

Further investigations established connection with a 33-year- old Australian man, also visiting New Zealand, who was arrested by police on Tuesday.

"Customs uses a range of methods to identify people and drug concealments, and those that try to import drugs into the country will not get away with it," Customs investigations manager Maurice O'Brien said in the statement.

Last week New Zealand Customs warned drugs smugglers were targeting mature travelers after the arrested a 72-year-old United States national who was allegedly caught smuggling millions of dollars worth of methamphetamine in his luggage.