Embarrassed coke smugglers eased with $10,000 fines

Two U.S. tourists, caught hiding cocaine in hard to find places, today pled guilty to drug trafficking. Brothers Andrew and Joshua Shumate, age twenty-three and twenty-six respectively, appeared before Magistrate Sharon Fraser this morning with lawyer Lionel Welch. Welch pointed out that the young men had no prior police record and asked the magistrate to invoke the proviso for leniency to avoid the mandatory prison sentence for the crime. Fraser accepted the attorney’s argument and fined each defendant ten thousand dollars or in default, three years in prison. They paid immediately and are presumably headed to their home in Virginia, U.S.A. The brothers, passengers on a cruise ship, were detained at the Tourism Village after they appeared to be acting suspiciously. Upon close examination each was found to be concealing over an ounce of cocaine in his anal cavity.