Three foreign nationals and one Cambodian woman were arrested for allegedly smuggling more than 2.5 kilograms of cocaine through Phnom Penh International Airport last week, an anti-drug police official said yesterday.

Colonel Soeung Nol, chief of the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Drug Police, said authorities swung into action on Wednesday after discovering the illegal contraband in the luggage of 42-year-old Macoy Mavill, a Philippine national.

“Macoy Mavill brought the drugs into Cambodia from Brazil. She was arrested by Immigration Police after they scanned her luggage and found small packages of cocaine powder hidden inside 34 plastic tubes underneath her jewellery,” Nol said yesterday, adding that 2.5 kilograms of cocaine was confiscated.

Following her arrest, Mavill confessed to being promised $2,500 for smuggling the drugs from Brazil into Cambodia by an unidentified Nigerian man based in Brazil, Nol added.

Operating off tips gleaned from Mavill, police arrested her alleged accomplices at the Luxury World Hotel in Daun Penh district on Thursday.

Michael Sunshine, 31, and Emmanuel Thankgod, 33, both citizens of Ghana, and Ming Sinoun, 30, a Cambodian citizen, are preliminarily accused along with Mavill of “keeping, transporting and trafficking drugs” under Article 40 of Cambodia’s Anti-Drug law, Nol said.

If found guilty, all four could face life in prison, according to the Anti-Drug Law.

However, the suspects are still being questioned by Phnom Penh Municipal Court and have yet to be formally charged, Seang Sok, a vice-prosecutor for the Court said yesterday.

Rates of methamphetamine and cocaine seizures in 2012 hit the highest totals ever reported by the country, according to a report released in November by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.