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BEIJING —

A Nigerian man tried to smuggle nearly 200 pounds of marijuana into China in his luggage but got nervous and left the cache sitting at the airport for a day, Beijing customs officials said Wednesday.

The man flew into Beijing International Airport from the Nigerian capital of Lagos on March 2 and left the airport with just one bag packed with clothes and some cash, said a statement from the Beijing Customs Bureau.

He returned the next day to retrieve the rest of his bags, which were found to contain 72 bricks, or 190 pounds (87 kilograms), of marijuana thickly wrapped in black plastic, said the statement posted to the bureau Web site.

The bust was the bureau's biggest so far this year, it said.

The China Daily newspaper on Wednesday published a photo of the man, who was not identified by name, handcuffed in a chair as one officer gripped his shoulder and another questioned him while pointing to dozens of plastic bundles laid out on the floor.

The customs statement said the man was detained but did not say if he had been formally arrested or charged. Calls to the Nigerian Embassy in Beijing rang unanswered.

Drug trafficking in China is punishable by death.


from:seattletimes.nwsource.com