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CNN Live Saturday

12-Year-Old Boy Caught Smuggling Heroin into U.S.

Aired April 13, 2002 - 13:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now to a story of a young boy who allegedly attempted to smuggle heroin into the United States. Police say to get past customs, the 12-year-old boy swallowed dozens of condoms filled with drugs. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the story from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He came to America alone, a 12-year-old boy, flying from Nigeria to New York, bringing little with him -- that is except a stomach full of drugs. Police say 87 condoms filled with heroin, the boy allegedly swallowing them to smuggle past customs.

(on camera): How big are they? Are we talking this big? Are we talking this big? I mean what are we looking at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say they're probably about that big.

FEYERICK: About that big?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

FEYERICK (voice-over): The boy, Prince Inaidozi Umabolu (ph) was born in America. Traveling on a U.S. passport, customs agents waved him through, even helping him get a cab.

DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT WILLIAM HANLEY, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: They escorted him out to the taxi stand and they got him a Yellow Medallion Cab. Once he got into the cab, he told the cab driver that he had to go to an address in Brooklyn.

FEYERICK: But when the boy gets to Brooklyn, the address he's looking for doesn't exist. So he makes a call and the person on the other end of the line tells him to go to LaGuardia Airport and someone will meet him there. By now, it's been more than 20 hours since his journey began, and the boy's stomach is reacting to the drug pellets. The cab driver, realizing something is very wrong, brings him to the Port Authority Police.

HANLEY: Police officers came out and they saw that he had passed the pellets, heroin pellets, which he had ingested inside of his body, in the back of the cab. FEYERICK: Paramedics rushed the boy to the hospital, doctors giving him laxatives to get rid of the remaining drug pellets, any one of them potentially lethal.

HANLEY: If it bursts, he'd be dead.

FEYERICK: The boy had been living in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Nigeria with grandparents, and was reportedly trying to get to his mom living here in Georgia. His dad is in federal prison, convicted in 1995 of being part of a heroin smuggling ring.

LAWRENCE ANDERSON, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: Umabolu (ph) was charged as part of that group that was involved in bringing heroin into the United States from really all over Europe, Bangkok, Thailand, certainly West Africa.

FEYERICK: Investigators are trying to find out who sent the 12- year-old and whether he allegedly swallowed the drugs on a four-hour layover in London, experts saying drug traffickers will stop at nothing.

FELIX JIMENEZ: They will use their bodies, their babies. They will use kids, accompanies by mothers or fathers, anything that will not bring the attention to the authorities.

FEYERICK: The guys running the organization have to know that if this 12-year-old kid gets in, even if he does get caught, they may lose the heroin, but he's probably not even going to do any significant jail time.

RICHARD BROWN: Well, that's right. I mean he's not going to serve any degree of time. He's a juvenile.

FEYERICK: The boy is charged with drug possession, a case to be heard in family court.

BROWN: I think it just goes to show you how low drug dealers will go in trying to make a buck.

FEYERICK: The boy's in stable condition.

HANLEY: He's a very intelligent young man. He was very surprisingly upbeat. You know, he's in good spirits.

FEYERICK: Authorities uncertain whether he'll ultimately stay in America or return to his grandparents in Nigeria.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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