Drug mules playing ‘Russian roulette’

A coroner has warned drug mules that they are playing “Russian roulette” after a 24-year-old Brazilian man suffered a painful death when one of more than 100 pellets of cocaine he had ingested burst on a flight from Lisbon to Dublin.

John Kennedy Santos Gurjao became so agitated and distressed on board an Aer Lingus flight on October 18, 2015, that he bit a passenger and jumped over seats.

Coroner for Cork County, Frank O’Connell, was told at the inquest into the death that Mr Kennedy Santos Gurjao became distressed about an hour into the flight.