To quote Steve Martin in The Jerk: "Roll the ugliness." ...

MSNBC link

Hang 'em high!

That's much worse than cat juggling! And it's worse than using poor, downtrodden women to smuggle drugs. At least the women and other humans have a choice, and can assess the risk involved, but puppies????? And if they're going to use an animal, why can't they use some unappealing animals, like snakes or rats?

quote:

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Originally posted by jane starnes:
And if they're going to use an animal, why can't they use some unappealing animals, like snakes or rats?

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...Or a cat!

Wonder if the Shagnasty twins have any trouble getting through customs. Any word on that, A.P.?

I'm still trying to judge if that's my favorite line from "The Jerk" or not. I personally side with Navin's dad who reminded him, "...Lord loves a workin' man" and "...this is *#$%, this is Shinola. Got that?".

Exit only

Come on, a columbian drug ring using any means to smuggle drugs, boy that can't be new to anyone. Frankly, I would be suspicious of any columbian import, including priests!

Greg, cats are not acceptable as drug couriers! Besides, they'd probably throw up the dope with a hairball. Don't be a hater (more particularly, a cat hater).

It give the phrase "that was some good sh*t" a whole new meaning

From the article:

"The organization'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," Gilbride said.

It's only when puppies get involved that we know the true extent that drug dealers will go to make their profit. Surgically implanting the stuff in humans or having impoverished women swallow condoms full of heroin doesn't show a serious commitment to the drug trade. For those dealers, that's just a summer job until their movie deals go through. But those puppy guys? They are hard core! That's a person who doesn't just want a job, they want a career. I wonder what the interview would be like for that gig. "So, and I almost hate to ask this but I know how poor you are, do you have any problems with surgically implanting heroin in puppies? If you do, I mean, I totally understand, I mean they're so cute, and we had problems with the rat and snake union, but those puppies are just so damned agreeable, bless their little hearts. But if you have a problem then we may have to go in another direction in filling this position."

[This message was edited by David Newell on 02-02-06 at .]

Please add your own ending to the last paragraph of David Newell's story on the ins and outs of drug smuggling using cats and dogs.

"While it is well known that the heathens in the Texas Legislature strongly considered a hunting season on domestic cats in a preemptive strike on the next anticipated drug smuggling tool, after the entire state of Vermont (population 1,177) appeared at the Capital in Austin and threatened to boycott leading Texas exports such as tortillas, pecan pralines and plastic bass fishing worms, the Texas Legislature decided to refer this prospective legislation to the next legislative session in 2007. The legislature reasoned that by 2007, Williamson County..."

Puppy turns tables on drug traffickers

ROTTWEILER IMPLANTED WITH HEROIN IN TRAINING TO TRACK SMUGGLERS DOWN

BOGOT�, Colombia (AP) -- Meet Heroina, the latest -- and surely cuddliest -- crusader in the U.S.-backed war on drugs.

The purebred Rottweiler was one of six fluffy black and beige puppies found in a raid on a clandestine veterinary clinic in Colombia, each with about a pound of heroin implanted inside their bellies.

Investigators believe a Colombian-based heroin trafficking ring used the dogs, as well as human couriers who swallowed the drugs, to conceal millions of dollars of heroin on commercial flights into New York for distribution on the East Coast.

The canines, with bags of liquid heroin surgically sewn in their abdomens, were shipped to drug traffickers posing as dog trainers wanting Labrador and Rottweiler purebreds for dog shows, Colombia's national police said.
Details of Heroina's saga were revealed this week, more than a year after the January 2005 raid, when Drug Enforcement Administration agents in New York announced that her former handlers were among 22 people nabbed in Colombia.
Ten of the suspects are already subject to U.S. extradition requests, DEA official Erin Mulvey told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Ten other members of the drug ring were arrested last year in New York, Florida and North Carolina, and more than 52 pounds of heroin were seized in the two-year investigation, the DEA and Colombian authorities said.

It was unclear how many dogs might have been used in the smuggling scheme, said John P. Gilbride, who runs the DEA's New York office.

``I think it's outrageous and heinous that they'd use small, innocent puppies in this way,'' he said.

Heroina was the only female among the three pups who survived after the drugs were removed by veterinarians in Colombia. Three others died of infections after the surgery.

After a lengthy recovery, the pooch was adopted by Colombia's Judicial Police in Medell�n and given the name Heroina, a play on the Spanish words for both the illegal narcotic and a heroic female.

Today, she's being trained to be part of a small army of Colombian dogs that sniff out drugs, and her two surviving companions are enjoying a dog's life as police officers' pets, said Gabriel Jaime Gut�errez, a police official in Medell�n.

Customs agents at Colombian airports now use body-scanning devices to spot drugs concealed in capsules and plastic condoms and swallowed by human travelers. But pets shipped as cargo often bypass these devices.

A far bigger concern for anti-drug forces is that the same traffickers behind the puppy ring may also have found a way of concealing drugs from even the most sophisticated drug detection technology.

As part of the investigation, officials tailed a woman they knew was transporting heroin for the ring. Upon interrogation by DEA officials in Miami, she became nervous and vomited up several drug-containing capsules, but only after she had slipped through body scans in both countries.
Police in Bogot� said the drug smugglers covered the capsules with a substance that made them invisible.

The case not only shows how far traffickers will go to conceal drug shipments -- but also shows the prominent role played by Colombia, the world's top cocaine supplier, in the trade of heroin, an even more lucrative drug.

According to the latest statistics available, Colombian and DEA agents seized more than 1,650 pounds of heroin in 2004, said Gen. Jorge Alirio Bar�n, Colombia's anti-narcotics police chief.
That's a pittance compared with the record 186 tons of cocaine Colombia seized last year, but owing to its almost 100 percent purity, heroin can be far more lucrative for smugglers.

``DEA officials in Boston told us that the street value of a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin is $250,000 when the same amount of cocaine doesn't even fetch a tenth of that,'' Baron said.

The cultivation in Colombia of opium poppies, the base ingredient of heroin, has fallen dramatically to about 3,700 acres under President �lvaro Uribe's tenure, and authorities aim to eliminate the remaining crop this year, Bar�n said.

But because valuable amounts can be transported in very small quantities, heroin trafficking can be hard to detect.

``We're talking about very small amounts -- a half-kilo bust is a big deal,'' said Baron.

Puppy turns tables on drug traffickers

ROTTWEILER IMPLANTED WITH HEROIN IN TRAINING TO TRACK SMUGGLERS DOWN

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Meet Heroina, the latest -- and surely cuddliest -- crusader in the U.S.-backed war on drugs.

The purebred Rottweiler was one of six fluffy black and beige puppies found in a raid on a clandestine veterinary clinic in Colombia, each with about a pound of heroin implanted inside their bellies.

Investigators believe a Colombian-based heroin trafficking ring used the dogs, as well as human couriers who swallowed the drugs, to conceal millions of dollars of heroin on commercial flights into New York for distribution on the East Coast.

The canines, with bags of liquid heroin surgically sewn in their abdomens, were shipped to drug traffickers posing as dog trainers wanting Labrador and Rottweiler purebreds for dog shows, Colombia's national police said.
Details of Heroina's saga were revealed this week, more than a year after the January 2005 raid, when Drug Enforcement Administration agents in New York announced that her former handlers were among 22 people nabbed in Colombia.
Ten of the suspects are already subject to U.S. extradition requests, DEA official Erin Mulvey told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Ten other members of the drug ring were arrested last year in New York, Florida and North Carolina, and more than 52 pounds of heroin were seized in the two-year investigation, the DEA and Colombian authorities said.

It was unclear how many dogs might have been used in the smuggling scheme, said John P. Gilbride, who runs the DEA's New York office.

``I think it's outrageous and heinous that they'd use small, innocent puppies in this way,'' he said.

Heroina was the only female among the three pups who survived after the drugs were removed by veterinarians in Colombia. Three others died of infections after the surgery.

After a lengthy recovery, the pooch was adopted by Colombia's Judicial Police in Medell�n and given the name Heroina, a play on the Spanish words for both the illegal narcotic and a heroic female.

Today, she's being trained to be part of a small army of Colombian dogs that sniff out drugs, and her two surviving companions are enjoying a dog's life as police officers' pets, said Gabriel Jaime Gut�errez, a police official in Medell�n.

Customs agents at Colombian airports now use body-scanning devices to spot drugs concealed in capsules and plastic condoms and swallowed by human travelers. But pets shipped as cargo often bypass these devices.

A far bigger concern for anti-drug forces is that the same traffickers behind the puppy ring may also have found a way of concealing drugs from even the most sophisticated drug detection technology.

As part of the investigation, officials tailed a woman they knew was transporting heroin for the ring. Upon interrogation by DEA officials in Miami, she became nervous and vomited up several drug-containing capsules, but only after she had slipped through body scans in both countries.
Police in Bogot� said the drug smugglers covered the capsules with a substance that made them invisible.

The case not only shows how far traffickers will go to conceal drug shipments -- but also shows the prominent role played by Colombia, the world's top cocaine supplier, in the trade of heroin, an even more lucrative drug.

According to the latest statistics available, Colombian and DEA agents seized more than 1,650 pounds of heroin in 2004, said Gen. Jorge Alirio Bar�n, Colombia's anti-narcotics police chief.
That's a pittance compared with the record 186 tons of cocaine Colombia seized last year, but owing to its almost 100 percent purity, heroin can be far more lucrative for smugglers.

``DEA officials in Boston told us that the street value of a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin is $250,000 when the same amount of cocaine doesn't even fetch a tenth of that,'' Baron said.

The cultivation in Colombia of opium poppies, the base ingredient of heroin, has fallen dramatically to about 3,700 acres under President �lvaro Uribe's tenure, and authorities aim to eliminate the remaining crop this year, Bar�n said.

But because valuable amounts can be transported in very small quantities, heroin trafficking can be hard to detect.

``We're talking about very small amounts -- a half-kilo bust is a big deal,'' said Baron.