These are the 5 most used animals for drug transport in Latin America

Imagination is perhaps the favorite word of criminals because being in the world of crime requires imagination, and a lot of. Or how could you constantly evade the authorities to find your way into a certain criminal enterprise?

It takes imagination even to avoid paying bribes in the most obvious way – knowing who the right people are – but above all it requires’go off the beaten track“To seek new and more complex ways of move a shipment, especially if it is drugs.

I have already said it Pablo Escobar, the bandits will always be three or four steps ahead authorities, and these cases prove it, as they contain some of the most unusual events in the world of drug trafficking that involve the use of animals to move the product.

It’s the cat and mouse game taken in its most literal version, since rodents and felines are part of the species on this list of “narco-animals”, with palomas, cows, dogs and even snakes.

Gatos

One of the last known cases to authorities of the use of animals to transport drugs was reported in April to Panama, when police arrested a “narco cat” who attempted to enter a prison carrying cocaine attached to his body.

Let’s just imagine the cat “White Yes spongyAs described by authorities, entering Nueva Esperanza prison, some 80 kilometers north of Panama City, with a cloth tied around his neck.

Adorable isn’t it? Well, this cute feline was carrying cocaine, crack and marijuana, according to drug prosecutor Eduardo Rodríguez, and had been trained to follow a food trail in prison.

The operation can take place in two ways, or bind the drugs to the animal and they sent him into the prison, enticing him with food, or within the same prison, they use it to move the product from house to house.

Although cats are not the most obedient animals, this is not the first known case of a feline mullet. The use of cats inside prisons to distribute drugs between cells has also been recorded in prisons in Costa Rica, according to local media statements from the prison police of that country.

On the other side of the world, in RussiaCases have been known with a similar modus operandi of cats being trained to enter prisons with drugs on their necks or tails. In 2019, a particular case surprised the authorities because it was a feline born in institutions, released by an inmate on release and handed over to his partners outside the prison. The new owners allegedly fitted him with a necklace filled with hashish and amphetamines and sent him back to prison.

But the furry drug lord was caught and taken into the care of a local animal center, reported the BBC. In the middle of the investigations, two suspects were arrested and now the animal is an integral part of the legal proceedings against him.

At 2010 Another episode occurred in Russia which involved a “narco cat”, But in this case the expedition was heroin.

Homing pigeons

The ingenuity of the narco also depends on the insurance conquer the skies, or in planes with which “crown“His big shipments abroad, or his carrier pigeons to move goods within cities.

One of the first known cases in Argentina was reported by Infobae in 2013, when he reported on a gang of drug dealers who used these birds distributing “small amounts of marijuana” in plastic tubes attached to the legs of carrier pigeons.

During the search of the headquarters of operations in Jíbaros, the police of the Lomas de Zamora police (Argentina) discovered a list of customers with their addresses, several marijuana plants, money and a dovecote on the roof. He also found Colombian newspaper clippings reporting a case in a northern prison in which a “drug dove” was discovered carrying marijuana adhering to its body.

At Colombia Carrier pigeons were also used to transport SIM cards, portable memories or hands-free devices inside prisons.

Another case of “narco pigeon” occurred in 2015 in Costa Rica, when the authorities discovered 14 grams of marijuana and cocaine attached to the chest of a pigeon that was perched in the courtyard of La Reforma prison, located in Puntarenas.

Cows and cattle

Agree with Insightful crime, drug trafficking using equine cattle as mules, it’s something that’s been on the authorities’ radar, especially in Central America, since around 2012.

In 2013, for example, a Mexican military investigation found that Illegal livestock trafficking infrastructure was also used to smuggle drugs into the country, camouflaged in the stomachs of cows and bulls they smuggled in as part of a double criminal case.

The documented cases show the existence of a network that sent cattle from Nicaragua, where the price of cattle is relatively low. These were acquired by foreigners and smuggled via Honduras Yes Guatemala with Destination to Mexico. In this framework, corrupt officials are required to issue false documents that certify the transit of livestock through these countries.

According to Insight Crime sources, it is in Honduras and Guatemala, especially in border areas such as Choluteca (Honduras), that cows are turned into drug mules, a process which experts say has been carried out in three ways, which is the most impressive.

All require surgical procedures, whether to get the medicine in or out of the animal. The first way is perform an operation in which the cow’s intestines are filled with medicine wrapped in plastic through a five-inch opening in the stomach. Per animal you can put between 40 and 60 kilos of medication.

The second is applicable to bulls, which are castrated, keeping the scrotal skin intact to then be filled with compacted drugs.

Finally, condoms filled with drugs are used, which are then introduced through the rectum of the cattle to be extracted when the contraband cattle reach their destination.

Snakes

the snakes were perhaps one of the first animals to be detected with drugs inside, and some time ago in 1993, when the Colombian drug cartels were the masters and lords of the trade, using whatever strategies they could imagine to “crown” the shipments to the United States. Escobar said, the key is to be two or three steps ahead.

The emblematic case occurred at Miami International Airport, when customs officials discovered about 35 kilos of cocaine inside 312 constrictor boa from Bogotá, Colombia.

While inspecting the reptiles, officers detected a “abnormal bulge ”in one of the snakes and during the x-ray examination they realized that inside there were two condoms containing cocaine.

According to a report by United Press International (UPI) at the time, the drug was forcibly introduced through the rectum of the snakes, and then the snakes were cooked. All the animals involved in this failed drug shipment must have been euthanized because of the serious damage suffered by drug traffickers.

Mouse

If the list started with cats, it will end with mice, because even these little rodents have not been spared by drug dealers in their criminal enterprises.

A case to be cited also occurred in a prison, but this time in Brazil in 2015, when inmates of Barra da Grota prison in the city of Araguaína, managed to “tame” a mouse to serve as a home for their drug trade.

According to Brazilian media or balloon, which was covering the news, prison guards found out about the operation because they noticed the rope the mouse had tied to its tail for he paced the prison from one pavilion to another.

During an inspection in the pavilion from which the rodent had emerged, they found around 30 bags of marijuana and 20 bags of cocaine.

What surprised the guards the most was that the mouse was so tame that it even accepted petting and nodding of the head as a reward for a good job.

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