This is criminal and yet genius—for criminals to attempt to use a bird to smuggle into a prison cocaine and marijuana.
And of course, you would only hear of such things taking place in countries like Costa Rica.
According to the Telegraph, “a homing pigeon was intercepted by police at a prison near San Jose, Costa Rica, after it was seen by a guard landing in the jail’s courtyard with a bag tied to its body.
On inspection, the black zipper bag was found to contain 14g of cocaine and the same amount of marijuana. Authorities suspect the bird was looked after and fed by an inmate in the medium-security wing of La Reforma prison, Costa Rica’s biggest penitentiar, before someone smuggled it out of the prison only to load it with illicit cargo ahead of its return route.
The director of Costa Rica’s prison police force told the media after the ruse had been exposed last Tuesday that the pigeon was able to fly perfectly well despite the drug-stuffed pouch strapped against its breast.”
And the bird is going to go into a prison of its own—it has been handed over by the authorities to a zoo, where it is being kept under observation before being housed in a larger enclosure.
This is not the first time attempts have been made to smuggle illegal substances into a prison. In 2011, prison guards in Bucaramanga, Colombia, found a pigeon attempting without success to fly over the wall into the jail laden with 45g of marijuana.
Two years ago, police in Buenos Aires smashed a marijuana-trafficking ring which used pigeons as a risk-free manner to transport the drug to their home base.
The problem is, when these birds are ‘arrested’, the humans behind the act go free…