Hiding drugs in pineapples and puppies

Mask of Manuel's rant yesterday about food fights reminded me of a few other stories about the inappropriate use of consumables; namely, creative ways people have been caught trying to smuggle drugs. Now, at the risk of sounding like your granny, I think drugs are dangerous and that is good reason why they’re illegal. But be prepared – the following tales of deception range from the bizarre to the horribly cruel.

Over the past few days it has been revealed that authorities in America caught a truckload of fresh fish coming over the border from Mexico with 708lbs (320kgs) of marijuana stashed under it. Border control could obviously still tell something was fishy with the delivery as they insisted the truck be x-rayed!

Stranger still, a shipment of pineapples from Latin America bound for Holland was found to contain almost 2000lbs (900kgs) of cocaine. Firearms were also in the loot.

It seems like drug smugglers will go to extreme lengths to conceal illegal substances. People, communities and even animals are harmed by the drug trade. Back in 2002 police in America arrested several Colombian nationals who had surgically implanted heroin into purebred puppies. As a dog lover, I can’t understand how anyone could be heartless enough to use them as drug mules.

Luckily, Crimestoppers is always working to tackle drug-related crime. About half of all information the charity receives is about drugs and last year more than £19m of drugs were seized as a result of information passed to Crimestoppers.

So thank you to everyone who passed on information to the charity before; working together is the only way to tackle crime and make our streets safer.