An 11-year-old girl forced by her father to swallow 104 capsules filled with cocaine in a plot to smuggle them into Europe remains in critical condition in Columbia, authorities say.
Her father brought her into a hospital emergency room in Santiago de Cali after one of the capsules opened in her stomach, then disappeared while doctors conducted emergency surgery to remove the drug cache from her stomach, police said.
Doctors said they took around 1.2 pounds of cocaine out of the girl. She remains in intensive care although she is expected to recover, the hospital said.
A search of the family home revealed tickets to Europe for himself and his daughter on a flight scheduled to leave just hours from the time the girl was brought to the hospital.
"Everything is pointing to the fact this youngster was going to be used in a twisted way by adults as a drugs mule to transport drugs from Colombia to another country," said Cali police chief Gen. Hoover Penilla.
"They had flights reserved to travel from Cali to Bogota and then an onward connection, Bogota to Madrid with a final destination of Gran Canaria," he said.
Police said they suspect the girl's mother, although claiming to be estranged from the father and living elsewhere, knew about the planned trafficking after a search of the family home found a passport and a plane ticket to Madrid in her name.
She remains in custody while police search for the father.
The Colombian Family Welfare Institute said they would take temporary custody of the child once she recovers and is released from the hospital.
"A case like this is horrific because it puts the life of an 11-year-old girl at risk," an institute spokesman said. "We are going to take steps to offer her protection and remove her from her harmful family environment."
Security cameras at the hospital recorded video of the father rushing toward the ER with the girl in his arms. Later, he is seen talking to another man police say they suspect may be a relative before both leave the hospital by the same door they had entered through minutes before.
Authorities say the parents applied for a visa for the girl earlier this year to allow her to travel overseas.
The parents allegedly informed their daughter's school she would be traveling and away from classes for two weeks.
"In 30 years of service I've seen all kinds of strategies to smuggle drugs but nothing as reprehensible as this," Penilla said.
