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This was done in Australia and they were caught. 90% of drug seizures are a result of intelligence gathering rather than search.

I listened to a talk from the former head of a customs agency who admitted that search alone is useless in stopping the flow of contraband. He described it as searching for a needle in a haystack in a haystack.

The intelligence turns out to be a good method. It is difficult to import multiple kilograms of a drug into a major city and not make noise about it. First you have the concern of anybody in the lower end of the pyramid being caught, and second there is the competition who are usually more than happy to rat you out to get rid of you.

I'm willing to bet that even the case of the professor in OP was a result of intelligence. There are two common ways couriers are caught in South America:

* the first is that they are turned in by the organization that has sent them. As part of police corruption and keeping locals out of prisons they setup foreigners.

* the second is signature detection. It turns out that a lot of organizations use the same types of suitcases. I bet it was the type of suitcase he was carrying that prompted them to search.