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Denpasar & Jakarta. Indonesian officials announced on Thursday that they had arrested two foreign nationals in separate drug-smuggling attempts, seizing more than five kilograms of methamphetamine in total.

In the first incident, customs officials at Denpasar’s Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali on Sunday arrested Thai woman Jip Jampasuk, 28, for allegedly smuggling 428 grams of the drug.

Made Wijaya, the airport’s customs chief, said Jampasuk had packed the drug into 35 capsules that she then swallowed. He said officials first became suspicious of her shortly after she landed on board a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok.

He said Jampasuk appeared jittery, and when officials patted her down, they noticed a hard bulge in her abdomen.

Jampasuk confessed to having swallowed the capsules, and officials later retrieved the drugs.

“The total weight of the 35 capsules was 428 grams, giving it a street value of Rp 856 million [$95,000], assuming a gram of meth goes for Rp 2 million,” Wijaya said, adding that Jampasuk claimed she had been promised $2,500 to smuggle the drugs by a Nigerian in Bangkok, identified as Steven.

Wijaya said Jampasuk would be charged on two counts of trafficking under the 2009 Narcotics Law, punishable by death. It was the first drugs arrest of the year at the airport.

Bali Police narcotics director Adj. Sr. Comr. Rudy Efendy, whose office is now handling the case, said recent attempts by foreigners to smuggle drugs into the country appeared to be masterminded by inmates at Nusakambangan Penitentiary in Central Java.

He cited the case of Sophawat Ueamduean, 24, also a Thai woman, who was arrested at Ngurah Rai on Dec. 16 with 1,280 ecstasy pills in her stomach.

“It turns out she was a mule for someone at Nusakambangan,” Rudy said, declining to identify the masterminds.

Also on Thursday, officials at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport said they had arrested a 53-year-old Frenchman, Gerard Debetz, on Tuesday for attempting to smuggle five kilograms of meth.

Evy Suhartantyo, a spokeswoman for the airport’s customs office, told Agence France-Presse that the drug was concealed in the lining of Debetz’s suitcase.

“Our officers found a suspicious package when it went through an X-Ray machine,” she said. She added said that after the man’s arrest, police also arrested an Iranian man and an Indonesian woman in West Jakarta who were expected to receive the package, estimated to have a street value of Rp 7.6 billion.

Debetz had arrived in the country on board an Emirates flight from Dubai.

Indonesia enforces stiff penalties, including life imprisonment and the death sentence, for drug trafficking convictions.