It was a bad coo-urier.
A pigeon was detained last month in a Canadian jail after it was discovered to be carrying a backpack that contained crystal meth, the Globe and Mail reported over the weekend.
The bird was found and later captured at the Pacific Institution correctional facility near Vancouver after officers noticed the high-flying fowl and its cargo.
“My initial reaction was shock because of all the advancements in technology and the number of drones we’ve seen,” said John Randle, Pacific regional president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. “The fact that it’s tied to a pigeon is abnormal.”
According to Randle, the bird was apprehended on the penitentury wall after the staff set a trap for it.
“It was spotted by correctional officers, I believe, and security intelligence officers when the officers were doing their standard patrols around and throughout the unit and institution,” Randle told Global News on Friday. “That’s when they initially spotted the bird with the package on it.”
Randle — who has never seen winged traffickers in his 13 years as a corrections officer — stated that the smugglers would have had an easier time getting the drugs to land in specific location if they had used a drone instead of a live creature.
The official also noted that smugglers have recently had to go “old school” with their methods, as law enforcement has increased their awareness of drug-smuggling drones — something which, Randle said, the facility contends with daily.
“They have gone backward in technology,” he explained. “Maybe that’s because of all the work we have done with drone interdiction that they are trying to find new ways to get contraband in without being detected.”
Though the drug pigeon incident is currently under investigation, Randle said that the creativity of smugglers should be a “massive concern to everybody.”
“The introduction of drugs into federal prisons is becoming a huge crisis,” worried Randle. “The whole goal of prisons is to rehabilitate and release people into society as law-abiding citizens, [so] introducing drugs is scary and especially a drug like crystal meth.”