Police say they’ve busted a drug ring in northern Italy, where South American smugglers posed as religious pilgrims and snuck cocaine into a Catholic convent hidden in their prayer books — all unbeknownst to the nuns living there.
The convent’s janitor was the alleged mastermind of the ring. Police say he organized religious pilgrimages for South American drug cartel members who disguised themselves as pious visitors, then snuck cocaine into the convent hidden in their luggage and prayer books. The nuns were “completely unaware” of what he was up to.
The cocaine was then transferred from the convent in the northern city of Piacenza, just outside Milan, to a nearby safe house in Bergamo, where investigators say it was refined, cut and distributed out to drug dealers in several major cities.