U.S. Customs and Border Protection at DFW International Airport announced Thursday that the agency had seized 10 kilograms of ketamine disguised as children’s board games in cargo.
Officers in Customs and Border Protections’ Advanced Targeting Unit partnered with its National Targeting Center to track two shipments arriving at DFW Airport, bound for Miami, according to a release. Upon examination, multiple packs of “crystalized white substance” tested positively for ketamine. Officers discovered the drugs on April 26, according to CBP officials.
“Global criminal networks utilize a wide array of tactics to smuggle dangerous and deadly drugs into the United States, but our CBP officers are highly trained in detecting and stopping these schemes,” said Jayson Ahern, Dallas area port director in a release. “Our drug interdiction efforts are vital to protecting American communities from the scourge of dangerous and deadly drugs.”
The shipments originated from London. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has hallucinogenic effects. It’s also a drug often used in sexual assault cases.
Airports and airlines have found drugs many times in aircraft or cargo flights. Last year, an American Airlines mechanic at John F. Kennedy International Airport was convicted of smuggling 10 bricks of cocaine hidden in an electronics compartment under the cockpit of the plane. It’s also the drug that last year killed 54-year-old Friends actor Matthew Perry, who died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine.
