Pubdate:  Tue, 26 Aug 1997

Source: Reuter

US woman held in Moscow with drugs in Barbie box

            MOSCOW (Reuter)  Russian customs officers detained an
American woman Sunday night at Moscow's main international
airport after finding 15 pounds of cocaine hidden in a box with
a Barbie doll, police said Monday.
            They did not name the woman, who was traveling with her son
and was in transit from Peru to Slovenia. U.S. Embassy officials
were not immediately available for comment.
            Moscow customs officers arrested a Lebanese man with 13
pounds of cocaine and a Ukrainian woman with 11 pounds, also at
Sheremetyevo2 international airport over the weekend. They were
traveling from Brazil to Ukraine on two separate flights.
            Drug smugglers face long jail terms under Russian law.
            Earlier this year, a British teenager was sentenced to six
years in a labor camp for smuggling 10 pounds of cocaine into
Russia. A Dutch woman is serving a sixyear sentence for a
similar offense.