Irish police have confirmed that a number of packages were found inside the body of a Brazilian man who died on board an Aer Lingus flight to Ireland from Portugal this week.
It is believed the packages contained cocaine, which the Garda Síochána suspect burst inside the man during the flight.
The man has been named as 24-year-old John Santos Gurgao, who died following a violent seizure on board flight EI485 on Sunday evening.
After an altercation on the Dublin-bound flight in which a fellow passenger was bitten the pilot diverted the plane to land at Cork airport about 5.40pm. Despite attempts to revive Gurgao, the Brazilian national was pronounced dead after the plane landed.
A Garda spokesman confirmed that a number of packages had been recovered from Gurgao’s body during a postmortem. He added that police were awaiting a toxicology report on the packages.
Passengers later reported that Gurago had to be restrained after suffering a very violent seizure on the flight from Lisbon to Dublin. One fellow passenger who tried to restrain him was bitten on the arm, according to others on the plane.
A Portuguese woman who was also on the flight was arrested shortly after the plane landed. She is in custody at a police station in Cork, but it is unclear at this stage whether she has any links to Gurago.
