Approximately 13 kilogrammes (close to 30 pounds) of cocaine were found hidden inside the leather upholstery of a motorised wheelchair on Friday at a Milan airport
thanks to a drug-sniffing dog. The wheelchair's user was immediately arrested, according to the authorities.
The Financial Guard police said in a statement that the specialised canine unit was being deployed at Malpensa airport to check arriving passengers
and their luggage from a flight from the Dominican Republic because in the past drug couriers had used that route.
Police checked the traveler's luggage after being alerted to him by a dog, which turned up nothing, before slashing the wheelchair's upholstery and finding the cocaine.
The 11 packets of cocaine, which together weighed 13.35 kilogrammes (nearly 30 pounds) and could have produced about 27,000 individual doses of the drug