Woman Who Looked Pregnant Busted Smuggling Heroin
A woman in Kansas City is facing 40 years in prison after she was busted trying to pass off her lumpy looking belly as a pregnancy when she was actually smuggling drugs across the country. 18-year-old Perla Murillo duct taped several bricks of heroin around her waist, but grabbed the attention of detectives at a Kansas City bus station when she started acting nervous.
Law enforcement officers were conducting interdiction activities at a local bus station on Nov. 27, 2018. Murillo got off a bus traveling from Denver, Colorado, to New York. Detectives contacted Murillo, who appeared very nervous and looked down at her belly when detectives explained they were looking for illegal narcotics. Upon closer inspection, her belly appeared to be somewhat lumpy or out of shape.
Murillo agreed to be searched and unzipped her maroon jacket. Detectives observed a pink maternity shirt with abnormal lumps and could see what appeared to be pillow stuffing between her pink maternity shirt and a sweatshirt. At that point, Murillo’s eyes began to well up with tears. Detectives looked into the gap between the pink maternity shirt and the sweatshirt and observed two bundles wrapped in grey and red duct tape behind some stuffing. Detectives immediately recognized the bundles to be a common method of transporting large amounts of narcotics.
After Murillo was detained, she removed three bundles that were wrapped to her body with a gauze-type material. The bundles contained a total of approximately 1.9 kilograms (more than four pounds) of heroin. Murillo also told investigators she had been paid $1,000 to transport four similarly-sized bundles of heroin to New York earlier that month.
Under federal statutes, Murillo is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 40 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.