May 5 (UPI) -- Doctors at a Colombian hospital performed surgery on a woman who swallowed more than $7,000 in U.S. $100 bills during an argument with her husband.

The 28-year-old Piedecuesta woman told doctors at the Hospital Universitario de Santander in Bucaramanga that she was suffering from severe stomach pain after swallowing between $7,000 and $9,000 in U.S. $100 bills.


The woman said she had raised the money by selling household electronics and had been planning to use it for a trip to Panama, but she swallowed the cash out of spite when her husband demanded a cut of the money during an argument.

"The patient was taken to surgery. Two operations were performed at the gastric level, at the exit of the stomach and at the disc part of the intestine," chief of surgery Dr. Juan Pablo Serrano told Telemundo's Al Rojo Vivo news program.

He said surgeons successfully removed $5,700 in bills that were in salvageable condition.

"The rest, which were palpated in the tract, were advanced into the colon and were expelled in a normal way," he told CNN Espanol.

Police said they are currently holding onto the 57 $100 bills removed from the woman's stomach until investigators can verify she wasn't attempting to smuggle it illegally.