Customs Finds Record 180 Heroin Pellets in Woman

A woman arrested at Washington's Dulles International Airport has set a record that nobody who values their life would attempt to beat, customs officials say. The 52-year-old woman had swallowed 180 pellets of heroin, containing nearly five pounds of the drug, reports the Los Angeles Times. The woman was detained after a TSA agent doing a pat-down noticed her stomach was abnormally tight. She was taken to hospital and expelled the pellets over the next four days.

"The amount of pellets and heroin this woman ingested is incredible, a serious health risk, and very troubling if these numbers become the new normal," a customs official said in a statement. "We were kind of shocked and surprised at the sheer number of pellets she ingested," another customs official says. "We usually see men twice her size ingest about half of what she did." The previous record was set a year ago at the same airport by a Nigerian man stopped with nearly four pounds of heroin in his stomach. (More Customs and Border Protection stories.)