Drug mule

A mule or courier is someone who smuggles contraband across a border (as opposed to sending by mail, etc.) for a smuggling organization. The organizers employ mules to reduce the risk of getting caught themselves. Methods of smuggling include hiding the goods in vehicles or carried items, attaching them to one's body, or using the body as a container.

In the case of transporting illegal drugs, the term drug mule applies. Other slang terms include Kinder Surprise and Easter Egg.

Methods of smuggling include hiding the goods in a vehicle, luggage, or clothes. In a vehicle, the contraband is hidden in secret compartments.

Sometimes the goods are hidden in the bag or vehicle of an innocent person, who does not know about the contraband, for the purpose of retrieving the goods elsewhere.

The practice of transporting goods outside the body is called body packing. This is done by a person usually called a mule, or bait. The contraband is attached to the outside of the body using adhesive tape, glue, or straps, often in such places as between the cheeks of the buttocks or between rolls of fat. Other inconspicuous places, like the soles of cut out shoes, inside belts, or the rim of a hat, were used more often prior to the early 1990s. Due to increased airport security the "body packing" method is rarely used any more.

Some narcotics-trafficking organizations such as the Mexican Cartels will purposely send one or two people with drugs on the outside of their body to purposely be caught, so that the authorities are occupied while dozens of mules pass by undetected with drugs inside their body. However, even these diversion tactics are becoming less and less prevalent as airport security increases.

This is often done using a mule's gastrointestinal tract or other body cavities as containers. Swallowing has been used for the transportation of heroin,cocaine, and MDMA/Ecstasy. A swallower typically fills tiny balloons with small quantities of a drug. The balloons may be made with multilayered condoms, fingers of latex gloves, or more sophisticated hollow pellets. One smuggling method involves swallowing the balloons, which are recovered later from the excreted feces. Alternately, the balloons may be hidden in other natural or artificial body cavities – such as rectum,colostomy,vagina, and mouth – although this method is far more vulnerable to body cavity searches. A drug mule may swallow dozens upon dozens of balloons. The swallower then attempts to cross international borders, excrete the balloons, and sell the drugs.

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