The nuns' habits didn't seem quite right for three young women, so Colombian police asked them to step aside when they arrived on the Caribbean island of San Andres on a flight from Bogota.
Police Captain Oscar Davila says the three women seemed nervous, and the fabric didn't look right.
The chief of the island's judicial police says more than two kilos of cocaine was strapped to the legs of each woman.
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Davila says all three broke into tears and launched into tales of financial hardship.
None of the women were nuns, and all were arrested early on Saturday and jailed on drug trafficking charges.
San Andres, just off Nicaragua's coast, is part of a longtime smuggling route for cocaine from mainland Colombia.
