New Telegraph

Customs seize $.5m hidden in furniture at Miami airport

…as two arrested after contraband-laden drone snags in prison net

Customs officers at a Florida airport found nearly a half-million dollars being smuggled out of the United States hidden inside furniture, officials said.
U.S. Custom and Border Protection officers at Miami International Airport seized $491,280 in unreported U.S. currency last Thursday, the agency said in a news release. The money had been concealed inside a chair placed in a crate with other furniture. The shipment was heading to the Dominican Republic and was selected for examination during outbound enforcement operations, officials said.
“Criminal organis will attempt to export large sums of cash to launder their ill-gotten gains,” said Robert Del Toro, the agency’s acting port director.
Officials didn’t say who the money belonged to or whether criminal charges would be filed, reports The Associated Press.
Travellers bringing more than $10,000 out of the U.S. must report it to customs officials. Failing to do so can lead to the money’s seizure and forfeiture, as well as potential criminal charges, officials said.
And in a related development, a drone carrying marijuana, cigarette lighters and cellphones got caught in a net above a Mississippi prison fence, resulting in the arrest of two men, state corrections officials said.
John Travis Ross, 33, of Vicksburg and Joshua Ray Corban, 18, of Utica, made initial court appearances Tuesday in Rankin County on charges of conspiracy and attempting to smuggle contraband into the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said in a news release Wednesday.
The two were identified after Rankin County sheriff’s investigators traced the drone’s flights — and then investigators turned up security video of them launching the drone, officials said. Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said the two confessed. It was not clear whether they had attorneys who could speak for them.

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