One morning three years ago, Ansley Hamid was awakened by a thumping on his door. First, the anthropologist says, he thought it might be the pest-control man. It wasn't. "This is the police. Open up!" Groggy and shirtless, Mr. Hamid complied, peering out above the security chain. He asked if he could get dressed and began to close the door. But one of the federal agents stuck his toe inside, keeping it open. Once the professor let them in, there was a flash of activity: four men, one woman, guns, badges. They took pictures, looked in closets. There was talk of misusing a federal grant, of snorting heroin, of arrest. [continues 3454 words]
Maybe the professor used vegetable oil to ease the balloons of cocaine down his gagging throat. Maybe he chased them with a glass or two of water. That's what the drug mules do. It was Easter in Amsterdam. Gennady M. Danilenko was thousands of miles from either of his homes -- the house he owns here, and an apartment in Moscow. The Russian law professor at Wayne State University, a widely published international law scholar, had flown to the Netherlands for a long weekend. Just before he left, he swallowed at least a dozen tightly wrapped balloons of cocaine. [continues 1813 words]
