Colombian police seize 2 tons of cocaine in flights to Mexico

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Colombian police seize 2 tons of cocaine in flights to Mexico

Drugs disguised as printer toner

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Monday, September 07, 2015 01:52 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, September 07, 2015 01:56 PM EDT

Police officers stand guard over seized packages of cocaine disguised as printer toner during a media presentation in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015. Police in Bogota's El Dorado airport were tipped off when a drug-sniffing dog detected the narcotics hidden in 48 boxes of a 1-ton cargo shipment bound for a company in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Authorities quickly alerted their Mexican counterparts who then found a similar amount in a flight a few hours earlier to Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

BOGOTA -- Authorities in Colombia and Mexico said they seized as much as 2 metric tons of cocaine disguised as printer toner in joint operations on Monday at the countries' two main airports.

Police in Bogota's El Dorado airport were tipped off when a drug-sniffing Labrador named Mona detected the narcotics hidden in 48 boxes of a 1-metric ton cargo shipment bound for a company in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Authorities alerted their Mexican counterparts, who found a similar amount sent a few hours earlier on a flight to Mexico City.

Colombia is the largest supplier of cocaine to the U.S. and much of the narcotic lands on American streets through Mexican drug cartels.

Authorities still need to extract the cocaine alkaloid from the toner powder in which it was hidden to determine its final weight.