A South African woman attempted to smuggle drugs into the country in an atrocious way by posing as a pregnant woman while carrying over a dozen packets of drugs inside her belly.

The 32-year-old was arrested at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Sunday after officials grew suspicious of the 'seven months pregnant' woman, The Times of India reported.

The drugs are suspected to be cocaine smuggled from Brazil, officials told the newspaper, though checks on the contraband are still to be conducted.

"When we intercepted her, Mosiea said she was walking with difficulty as she was seven-month pregnant. When we shifted her to a corporate hospital at the airport for preliminary examination, she admitted that she was carrying narcotics in her stomach,"  an Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) official was quoted as saying. 

While the TOI report said that the woman had likely swallowed the drug packets, a report by The New Indian Express said that the packets had been stitched into her body, quoting officials that suture marks were found on her.

The South African national was then taken to the Osmania General Hospital, where doctors retrieved at least 16 drug packets from her body using laxatives. 

Authorities were reportedly alerted after they noticed something suspicious in her travel logs in her passport. 

Over the last week, the woman, identified as Mosiea, travelled from Johannesburg to Dubai, then to Sao Paulo City in Brazil, then back to Dubai, before landing in Hyderabad on Sunday. 

The drugs could reportedly be worth Rs 50 Lakh. 

Drug smugglers often swallow capsules to go undetected at airports. 

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