Tech Shout!

The Drug Enforcement Administration stated on Monday that Colombian drug dealers smuggled heroin into the United States by surgically implanting the strong drug into puppies.

In a statement Special Agent-in-Charge John Gilbride of the DEA’s New York Field Division said that 21 Colombian nationals were arrested on Wednesday for smuggling over 20 kilograms (44 lb) of heroin, worth $20 million (11.3 million pounds) at street prices, into the United States. Human couriers swallowing heroin packets and Labrador Retriever puppies were some of the methods used to ship the drugs. In one planned shipment, six puppies were found infused with three 3 kg (6.6 lb) of liquid heroin packets.

The smugglers also hide heroin in body creams and aerosol cans and sewed it into the lining of purses and luggage, the DEA said.

Gilbride said, “The organisation’s outrageous and heinous smuggling method of implanting heroin inside puppies is a true indication of the extent that drug dealers go to make their profit.”

Wednesday’s arrests, 20 in Colombia and one in North Carolina, followed a two-year investigation with Colombian police of a drug ring based in Medellin, Colombia, whose network reached from Miami to New York, the DEA said.

The DEA hopes to bring nine of those arrested to New York to face charges. Colombia is the main supplier of heroin to the United States.

In January 2005, DEA spokeswoman Erin McKenzie-Mulvey said that DEA officers and police in Colombia found six puppies with scars on their bellies at a temporary veterinarian clinic on a rural property. Ultrasound scans revealed the heroin hidden inside the young dogs, three of which later died of infection. Another set of four puppies were found with no drugs inside them, she said.

McKenzie-Mulvey said the traffickers had planned to retrieve the heroin after the dogs had passed U.S. customs.

She said the surviving dogs are now, “living happily with families in Colombia.”