Feds: Drug smugglers used Virgin Mary tombstones to hide cocaine

ABC 7 Eyewitness News

Federal agents are today giving the details of an unusual, international drug take down. And you won't believe what the suspects were using to smuggle in the goods. Eyewitness News reporter Jeff Pegues joins us now with the story.

Eyewitness News has obtained photographs that show the lengths some drug organizations will go through to smuggle cocaine into the country, and more specifically New York. Sources tell us at least 10 suspects have been arrested in New York as part of an international drug ring that used tombstones with the image of the Virgin Mary on them to smuggle drugs.

Sources say federal agents discovered the cocaine, hundreds of kilograms of it, packed away in those tombstones.

Eyewitness News has learned they were smuggled into the country by a cocaine trafficking organization based out of Monterey, Mexico. Sources say they used all sorts of methods to smuggle the cocaine across the U.S. border, through several states and all the way up the east coast.

Ten people in New York were arrested in the case and authorities seized 194 kilograms of cocaine and large amounts of cash.

We are told it is just the tip of the iceberg. Sources say there are many more arrests across the country.