News of a potentially false arrest is coming out of Mexico this week, and it is a sobering reminder of the possible dangers of international travel. An Arizona woman's family is claiming she has been framed after she was arrested for drug smuggling in Mexico.

"She's innocent," Anna Soto, one of Yanira Maldonado's children, told CNN. "She's an honest good woman -- a Christian woman that would never do anything to jeopardize her freedom."

Maldonado and her husband were returning by bus to their home in Phoenix after attending her aunt's funeral in Mexico. When they reached a checkpoint in northwestern Mexico, however, it became clear that Maldonado would not be making it back. Police found a 12-pound stash of marijuana under her seat, and promptly arrested the mother of seven.

"Never ever in our lives [did we] deal with drugs or do drugs," Gary Maldonado told Phoenix's Fox 10 affiliate. "Everybody from the very beginning was telling us, 'We know you guys aren't guilty, but this is just the process.'"

Even the authorities in Mexico are having a hard time believing that the woman could commit such a crime. They believe that it would be next to impossible for her to have snuck the marijuana onto the bus and hidden it under her seat without being detected.

"A passenger by himself or herself would have been unable to carry almost six kilos of marijuana onto a bus without being noticed," an unnamed Mexican official told CNN. "She must've been framed."'

Despite the fact that many people believe in her innocence, Maldonado has yet to be freed from the custody of Mexican authorities. Her husband claims that officers there have already told him that if he would like his wife to walk free, he must pay them $5,000. Though this is a clear sign of extortion, such practices are far more common in Mexico.

Assuming Maldonado is innocent, the news is heart-breaking. She has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday; the judge could either let her go free or assign her to a prison while she awaits a formal hearing in the case. Maldonado has the option of requesting a 72-hour delay, but if she is not aware of that, she may face preliminary judgment immediately.

"She was at a wire window with her fingertips up through the holes, touching her son's hand with one hand and touching her husband's hand with the other," says Maldonado's brother-in-law, Brandon Klippel. "She was just saying, 'I don't know how this happened to me. I've never done anything illegal in my life. Why has this happened?'"

It is commonplace for drug smugglers to use buses and individual people in order to transport their product across international lines. Last month a San Diego woman who had just crossed the border reported to police that a pair of men attempted to retrieve a package they had stowed under her car while he was at work. That package ended up containing 30 pounds of marijuana.