"Whitening & Freckles," read the boxes of soap that arrived at San Francisco International Airport last week. "Acne & Blemish, with Vitamin C," read others. The ingredient not listed on the packaging: opium.
According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, on September 9, a package containing 66 individually-wrapped bars of the popular Thai-made Soafty brand soap arrived at the U.S. Postal Service Center at SFO.
When the package, which was sent from Thailand to an undisclosed Northern California address, went through their x-ray machine, agents grew suspicious. They popped open the package, removed one of the Soafty boxes, and sliced open one of the bars of soap. That's when they realized that the bars of soap had been hollowed out and stuffed with opium.
"The soap bars look like whole bars. They came in actual boxes of soap, just like you would buy in a supermarket. They cut open the soap and each individual box was filled with opium," Customs and Border Protection spokesperson and cool-guy nameholder Frank Falcon told ABC7.
Bar of opium-filled soap confiscated at SFO on September 9, 2014: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency
The 66 bars of soap, which can retail in the US for as much as $30/bar, contained about 8.9 pounds of opium, in total.
Falcon tells the Chron that the smuggling of straight-up opium is unusual, as "Opium is kind of an obscure drug. It's not really a street drug like heroin, cocaine or marijuana."
Customs and Border officials declined to comment on the estimated value of the confiscated opium, or if any arrests had been made, only saying that the investigation is ongoing.
Bar of opium-filled soap confiscated at SFO on September 9, 2014: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency
