It may have been a case of lax airport security or the fact that pilots don’t get the full cavity search the rest of us get when we travel. Then again, the time-tested method of swallowing packets of drugs to smuggle across borders is still a tried-and-true way for narco traffickers to meet demand here in the U.S.

A report surfaced this weekend of an alleged drug mule who was a passenger on a flight into Houston from Colombia on Saturday. Things didn’t go well for him, either, and reports say he had to admit himself to the hospital to save his life.

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KPRC reports that the man in question is in his forties. He was treated at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital after packets of cocaine he ingested ruptured in his stomach, a law enforcement source told the news station.

Camilo Hannibal Smith started writing for the Houston Press in 2014. A former copy editor, he was inspired to focus on writing about pop culture and entertainment after a colleague wrote a story about...