COURIER'S STOMACH YIELDS HEROIN LOAD

A few hours before his heart stopped Tuesday morning, a 59-year-old
man complaining of stomach pains told Mercy Hospital officials he had
a "drug problem." That became apparent when a surgeon pulled 80
condoms filled with $60,000 in heroin from the man's stomach.

One of the condom pellets -- each as long and thick as a thumb --
burst inside his belly and nearly killed him. He was revived and in
critical condition Tuesday, Miami police said.

Police and U.S. Customs Service officials would not release the man's
name, but suspect he's a "mule," a low-level drug trafficker who was
carrying the 1.5 pounds of heroin from Colombia.

If he survives, authorities said, he will face felony drug trafficking
and possession charges.

"The guy had to know he was walking around with a belly full of
death," said police spokesman Lt. Bill Schwartz.

Most mules make $4,000 to $6,000 for the dangerous -- and
uncomfortable -- job, police said.

"The majority of carriers end up like this, and they do it for chump
change," Schwartz said of the hospitalized man.

The stomach smuggler was the sixth discovered by Miami police this
year. Five were hospitalized. The sixth was ratted out by an informant
and caught as he was "passing" the drugs in a hotel bathroom, Schwartz
said.

Customs special agent Zach Mann said poor men and women are recruited
with promises of a weekend vacation in South Florida and making "more
money in a single trip than they may make in an entire year."

But when they meet with the smugglers, Mann said, they are given the
unpleasant instructions on how to smuggle the drugs. If the "mules"
cannot gag down the pellets, they are told to put them elsewhere in
their bodies.

Prune juice and laxatives follow a plane flight. Mules are sometimes
found gutted, Mann said.

"Many people have no idea what they're getting themselves into," he
said.