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People will literally try anything when it comes to smuggling drugs. This has been proven time and time again, but using a cat? That isn’t something you see every day.
That, however, was what was being attempted recently when guards in Costa Rica at the Penitentiary Police of Pococi prison snagged a frisky feline trying to break into the yard over a perimeter fence.
“On Tuesday night, Penitentiary Police officers at the Pococí prison managed to rescue a kitten carrying two drug packages attached to its body,” the Costa Rican Ministry of Justice and Peace said in a statement. “The officer stationed at one of the forts spotted the animal in the green zone and immediately raised the alarm.
“Thanks to the swift actions of the responding officers, the cat was caught and the packages removed, preventing them from reaching their final destination. Upon inspection, one contained 235.65 grams of apparent marijuana and the other 67.76 grams of apparent crack cocaine paste.”
After cutting the contraband off of the cat, it was turned over to the National Animal Health Service to be evaluated.
The story is reminiscent of another that took place in British Columbia in 2023 at Pacific Institution in Abbotsford. In that case, prison officers were shocked to see a pigeon in one of the fenced inmate unit yards walking around with a small package on its back that was tied to it in a similar fashion as like a little backpack. Inside the pigeon’s pack was 30 grams of crystal meth.
“We’ve been focusing so much on drone interdiction … now we have to look at, I guess, pigeons again,” John Randle, Pacific regional president of the Union for Canadian Correctional Officers, said at the time. “It’s a bit of a reality check for us that the creativity that people are going to use to try and smuggle drugs and other contraband into the institution is multifaceted.”
Much like with that drug-smuggling cat, the meth pigeon was not arrested and was allowed to walk away with just a warning.