Russian Surgeon Caught Taking Heroin from Patient's Stomach: Most Commonly Smuggled Drugs Heroin and Cocaine

An unnamed, Russian doctor has just been arrested for taking a five-gram bag of heroin he found in a patient's stomach, according to Reuters.

"The doctor was intoxicated at the time of detention," police for the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk said in a statement on Tuesday, adding he faced up to 15 years in prison for theft and possession.

At this time, he has refused to answer any question without a lawyer, according to police. However, it is not clear whether or not the patient has been arrested.

According to a study from the New England Journal of Medicine, published in 2003, transportation of illicit drugs by concealment in the body has now become a rather common practice in many places across the globe. This can include anything from doses of heroin or cocaine to amphetamines that may be hidden during the time of an arrest for several minutes or hours. They could even be transported while flying in an airplane inside someone's gastrointestinal tract and shipped overseas.

Dr. Rama Rao, an emergency room physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital breaks down the various types of drug smuggling via Popular Science. He uses the slang "body packing" to refer to those who transport drugs through swallowing a packaged container containing the illegal material. It is then most commonly transported in the person's stomach, possibly while traveling on an airplane or other journey that spans a longer period of time. For others, they may conceal illegal products in the hopes of avoiding jail time, "stuffing" drugs up into their anus. Each of the cases can often result in visits to the emergency room, and for some, may even cause death.

"It's really just up to what the patient can tolerate," Dr. Rao said, via the news organization.

The most commonly smuggled drugs are cocaine and heroin.