Couple 'Win' Vacation, End Up as Drug Mules

If an all-expenses paid trip to Canada, including accommodations and new luggage, sounds too good to be true, well, hindsight is 20/20. An Australian couple thought they'd won a dream vacation when they were revealed as the "lucky" winners of a contest they'd entered online. It turns out the competition, from bogus Canada-based tour company AusCan Tours, was effectively an application to be drug mules. When the Perth couple, ages 64 and 72, returned home to Australia a little suspicious about their bags, they alerted the airport's customs officials, who found $7 million in crystal meth stashed in the lining, the AFP reports. Australian police think the couple's luggage was switched in Canada.

A Canadian was arrested in Perth—he was apparently supposed to meet the couple upon arrival—and a raid turned up suitcases similar to those seized, related documents, and $15,000 in cash. The scam, uncovered earlier this month, apparently targeted older people, and there are "a lot of Canadians involved in this," a reporter told the CBC, citing eight arrests over the last year and a half. Meanwhile, the victims are warning others: "Be very careful if you win anything," the woman told the Australian. "I could have ended up in jail for 25 years, and they could have ruined my life."