CHOCO-HIGH

U.S. Embassy Staffer Charged Over Cocaine Snack Cake Smuggling Scheme

Prosecutors say security guard Jairo Arias Caceres packed coke bricks in duty-free whisky boxes, Marlboro cartons, and Choco Pie containers.

A U.S. embassy official in the Dominican Republic allegedly used his badge to sneak bricks of cocaine into New York by stuffing the drug inside duty-free Johnnie Walker whisky boxes, Marlboro cartons, and Choco Pie containers. Security guard Jairo Eliezer Arias Caceres, 35, allegedly recruited couriers, paid their flights, and shepherded the loads through checkpoints between April and December 2023 before Homeland Security agents arrested and extradited him from the Dominican Republic this week, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Manhattan. Arias Caceres now faces one count of conspiracy to import cocaine—a charge carrying a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison—after prosecutors blasted the plot as a stunning betrayal of public trust. “While Arias Caceres was supposed to be protecting our diplomats and embassy staff from danger, he was allegedly busy endangering New Yorkers by pumping illegal drugs into our community,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release.