A 24-year-old Brazilian man who became aggressively violent, bit another passenger and then died during an Aer Lingus flight from Portugal to Ireland was carrying more than 80 pellets of a substance believed to be cocaine in his stomach. During a postmortem exam, pathologists discovered that the man, identified by the Irish Times as as John Kennedy Santos Gurjao, had ingested 0.8 grams of the substance. According to Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster, one of the wrapped pellets appeared to have ruptured, causing Santos Gurjao’s death.
The substance inside the pellets has been collected for toxicology tests and, if it is identified as cocaine, the amount of the drug that Santos Gurjao had swallowed would have a street value of €56,000 ($63,600).