Feds make cocaine cheese bust at Dulles airport

For the third time in recent months, federal authorities have stopped an alleged cocaine smuggler from El Salvador at a Washington-area airport. This time there was no cocaine soup, but there was cocaine cheese.

Fifty-four-year-old Hector Anibal Ardon is accused of carrying 2.6 pounds of cocaine onto a TACA Airlines flight from El Salvador to Washington Dulles International Airport. Authorities said he was caught with the drugs after arriving at Dulles around 2:30 a.m. Friday.

Federal agents have stopped two other alleged smugglers entering the country in this area from El Salvador. Both used the same method: hiding a total of 30 pounds of cocaine in soup packets.

The drugs were discovered when they arrived at Dulles and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Those smugglers were targeted by agents who had received tips.

Ardon, however, is accused of taking a different route. A little less than two ounces of cocaine was in plastic bags hidden inside a container of moist cheese, according to court documents filed in Alexandria's federal court. The remainder, and bulk of the drugs, was duct taped to his body.

Border patrol agents discovered the cocaine queso after randomly pulling Ardon for a routine search, according to a sworn statement from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. When agents searched through the suspect's baggage, they found the cheese container with the cocaine hidden inside.

At that point, they sent Ardon into a waiting room where they watched as he slipped a package beneath a seat, the statement said. The package, it turned out, was 2.4 pounds of cocaine that Ardon had taped to his body, authorities said.

"Smugglers typically employ creative concealment methods to ferry their deadly drugs into the U.S.," Christopher Hess, Customs and Border Protection port director for the Port of Washington, said in a statement.

"But it's been a long time since a smuggler brazenly attempted to conceal narcotics on his person."

In December, customs agents also seized about a quarter of an ounce of hashish and marijuana smuggled inside tea bags at Dulles, a CBP spokesman said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Examiner. All rights reserved.)