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Cocaine shoe ring tripped up

By Steve, on Monday, 29 October 2007

Published in : The News, U.S. News

Women wearing what looked like over-sized clown shoes tipped U.S. customs inspectors to an alleged cocaine smuggling ring that has taken 10 years to prosecute.

U.S. agents in Ohio said the alleged scheme involved Columbus-area residents who were lured by an all-expenses-paid vacation to Chetumal, Mexico, in the late 1990s and returned with cocaine hidden in shoes that were sometimes large enough to hold 2 pounds of the drug.

"They had women wearing men's size 12 shoes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robyn Jones Hahnert told the Columbus Dispatch Monday. The newspaper said she likened them to "Bozo the Clown shoes."

Federal agents recently nabbed two of the three alleged ringleaders, three brothers who were based in Belize. One defendant, Duane Sewell, pleaded guilty to cocaine smuggling and is to be sentenced in December. Another brother remained at large while a third is fighting extradition from Belize.

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