It was the ultimate in “high” end footwear.
A ring of drug smugglers figured out a way to mold cocaine into replicas of pricey Manolo Blahnik shoes during a two-year international trafficking caper that ended this week.
Spanish cops busted the gang Tuesday with $630,000 worth of cocaine that had been carefully sculpted to look like the high-heeled, luxury women’s footwear made famous on “Sex and the City.”
Each pair of shoes is estimated to have been worth around $70,000.
Six members of the drug trafficking gang — five Colombians and a Spaniard — were tossed in the clink after police at the Barcelona airport found the dope, which weighed around 9 pounds.
Cops said the gang had been shipping the fancy footwear from Colombia to Barcelona and then sold it on the streets of Spain and throughout Europe.
The arrests were the culmination of a four-month probe into a 34-year-old man and his 24-year-old wife, both Colombian, who headed the ring.
The couple, who lived in Spain, would organize the transport of the drug from Colombia to Spain by paying “mules” who carried the consignments of “Manolos.”
When the cocaine arrived, three other men would turn the shoes back into white powder and distribute the drugs to dealers.
Police arrested the six suspects in a series of raids after they discovered the gang’s boss was about to receive a final shoe shipment and then return to Colombia with his wife.
Two of the smugglers attempted to get away and were apprehended after a high-speed car chase.
The bust revealed possibly the most inventive method of smuggling the drug, which was mixed with a liquid, turned into a paste, molded and painted to look like shoes.
In the past, Spanish police have discovered cocaine shipments disguised as replica sculptures, a “plaster cast” protecting a man’s broken leg, and even an entire 42-piece tea set.
Spain’s proximity to Morocco, a key source of hashish, and close ties with its former colonies in Latin America, a major cocaine-producing region, have made it a major gateway into Europe for drug traffickers.