Federal agents at SFO find opium smuggled inside soap

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (KGO) -- Narcotic traffickers seem to be getting even more creative in their attempts to smuggle illegal drugs into Northern California.

The latest example arrived at San Francisco International Airport last week inside a box of soap. Federal agents grew suspicious after they took an X-ray of the box. So they opened it up, and cut open a bar of soap. Then they found a bag of opium. Each of the 66 bars of soap had been hollowed out and filled with the drug.

"The soap bars look like whole bars. They came in actual boxes of soap, just like you would buy in a supermarket. They cut open the soap and each individual box was filled with opium," Frank Falcon from Customs & Border Protection said.

Customs agents found almost nine pounds of opium inside the soap. They have not estimated how much it is worth on the street.

Federal authorities are now looking for the intended recipient of the drug.