| | |  Americas & Beyond | August 2009 
Peru Police Seize Cocaine Sewn Inside Live Turkeys
 Associated Press
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August 25, 2009
Lima, Peru — Peruvian police expecting to find a shipment of cocaine hidden in a crate holding two live turkeys were surprised to discover the drug surgically implanted inside the birds.
Acting on a tip, officers stopped a Turismo Ejecutivo SRL bus outside the city of Tarapoto in the central jungle state of San Martin, officials said Monday.
Police were puzzled when they found the turkeys in the crate, but didn't find the cocaine, Tarapoto's anti-drug police chief, Otero Gonzalez, told the Associated Press. They then noticed that the two turkeys were bloated.
"Lifting up the feathers of the bird, in the chest area, police detected a handmade seam," he said.
A veterinarian extracted 11 oval-shaped plastic capsules containing 1.9 kilograms (4.2 pounds) of cocaine from one turkey and 17 capsules with 2.9 kilograms (6.4 pounds) from the other, he said.
Both turkeys survived the removal.
Police were searching for whoever sent the shipment from Juanjui to Tarapoto, which is on a smuggling route from Peru's east Andean coca-producing valleys to northern coastal cities, where it is sold to Mexican and Colombian traffickers.
Gangs often use human couriers who swallow cocaine to sneak it across borders but it is unusual to use animals. In 2005, Colombian police found a total of 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of heroin sewn into the bellies of six puppies during a raid on a veterinarian clinic. |
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