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The trio were nabbed Tuesday during a raid at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where police discovered the drugs said to be worth 1.25 million ringgit (338,000 dollars), city police chief Muhammad Sabtu Osmansaid.

"The syndicate was using Malaysia as a transit point before the drugs were smuggled to Indonesia and Thailand," Mohammad Sabtu was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

"They entered the country using tourist visas and admitted they did not know the contents of the bags which they carried and were told precious items were in them," the police chief was quoted as saying. "They were being paid 3,000 ringgit for each delivery."

Police said they were investigating leads indicating that the mastermind of the syndicate was an African national because one of the suspects had recently travelled to South Africa twice.

Mohammad Sabtu said the three women, aged 24 to 41,  would be charged with drug trafficking, which carries a mandatory death sentence upon conviction.