Traffickers Turn Dogs Into Mules

Using Labrador and Rottweiler breeds, Colombian drug smugglers are stitching plastic packets of liquid heroin into the stomachs of puppies.

Each of the puppies were found holding between one and two plastic packets containing some 400 liquid grams of heroin, General Ruben Carillo, head of Medellin's metropolitan police, said.

"We think the dogs were going to be sent to the United States as family pets," General Carillo told AFP.

Police needed to use ultrasonic testing to detect the heroin packets because they are invisible to x-rays. Being relatively undetectable, one has to wonder whether the same smuggling technique is used with humans. A single overweight adult could probably pack ten or twenty pounds of drugs in folds of flab.