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
penitentiary, 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.
Pablo Bertozzi, who said he had seen cases of
cats being used to transport drugs strapped to
their tails, added that the homing pigeon incident
would lead to a redoubling of efforts to clean the
jail of controlled substances.
"The real problem is that there is a lot of
consumption. If there weren't consumers, the
drugs wouldn't be arriving", Mr Bertozzi said.
The bird, which has affectionately been nicknamed
"narcopigeon" (narcopaloma) by Costa Ricans,
has been handed over by the authorities to a zoo,
where it is being kept under observation before
being housed in a larger enclosure.
"Because of the way it came to us, it can never
be freed," a zoo worker told local media, adding
that the bird was reluctant to eat, probably
because it had become used to being hand-fed by
one person.
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.
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