Drug traffickers caught stuffing live dogs with drugs in smuggling scheme
Around 75 people were detained in Italy for the scam, which caused the death of 50 hounds, including Great Danes, Labradors and Mastiffs.

BY LEE MORAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2013, 9:00 AM

One of the dogs seized by Italian authorites that was being used as a drug mule.

International drug traffickers have been busted using dogs as mules.

The heartless gangsters were force-feeding the innocent animals bags of cocaine — and then slicing open their stomachs to pull them out once they had arrived at their destination.

These plastic-wrapped packets of drugs, each weighing 2.8 pounds, were force-fed to the dogs by traffickers.

Around 75 people were detained across northern Italy and Rome for the scam, which saw 50 pups — including Great Danes, Labradors and Mastiffs — die.

News agency ANSA reports the suspects — who face charges of criminal association, drug trafficking and illegal weapon possession — had links to South American drug cartels.


Some of the confiscated drug packets, shown off by Italian authorities.

The dogs were stuffed with the plastic packets that each contained 2.8 pounds of the drug.

It's not the first time dogs have been used to get around customs officials.

RELATED: SOLDIER SMUGGLED $1 MILLION FROM AFGHANISTAN

In 1994 an English sheepdog was found trying to enter New York’s Kennedy Airport, having been flown from Colombia with 10 condoms packed with the drug inside its stomach.

Agents thought he looked sick, and ordered an X-ray, when they made the discovery.



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