After the sniffer dog flagged the drugs to officers, the wheelchair user got up and started walking unaided. Police said they found the drugs stuffed into the wheelchair’s upholstery.
Almost £1.2m worth of cocaine was found in a motorised wheelchair in Italy.
A sniffer dog helped police at a Malpensa Airport in Milan make the discovery.
The user of the wheelchair was pretending to be disabled, and Financial Guard police found the drugs stuffed in the upholstery of the wheelchair.
The man was immediately arrested, police said.
The canine unit was on patrol at the airport checking arriving passengers and their luggage from the flight from the Dominican Republic, a commonly used drug smuggling route.
When the dog drew the officers’ attention to the wheelchair, police checked the luggage but found nothing.
They then cut open the upholstery of the wheelchair and found cocaine.
Police said when the discovery was made, the user, a Spaniard, got up from the wheelchair and walked unaided.
In total, 11 packets of cocaine, weighing 13.25kg (25.2lbs) was seized, and it could have made 27,000 individual doses, police said.
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The street value of the bust values to around €1.4m (£1.2m).
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