Inmates at Brazilian prison using pigeons to smuggle drugs and mobile phones
Drug mule pigeons
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Inmates have been using pigeons to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into a South American prison, it was revealed today.
Guards at the jail near Sao Paulo had noticed a rise in the amount of narcotics being seized from prisoners and were mystified until they spotted some distressed pigeons struggling to remain airborne.
They found that inmates at the prison in Marilia had been training the birds to fly in goods with the aid of small pouches on their backs, avoiding the high-tech security faced by visitors.
Officials revealed the carrier pigeons had been trained inside the jail and lived on the roof of the building where prisoners would take their deliveries before smuggling the birds out again through friends and family.
The method was foiled after workers noticed some pigeons having difficulty flying due to the weight of the goods.
Prison director Luciano Gamateli told Globo TV: “We have sophisticated equipment to search people when they go in, but they avoided this by finding another way to bring in cell-phones and drugs.”
Brazil’s prisons are notoriously overcrowded and well-known for their lax security, with drug and mobile phone use common among inmates.
Last year prisoners at one Sao Paulo jail used their phones to orchestrate a wave of attacks against police and public property.
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