September 01, 2017
Police in Kermanshah have arrested almost 100 pigeons for trafficking in drugs.
The pigeons carried the drugs in small blue plastic bags attached to their legs, the state news agency reported.
It said the use of birds to transport drugs was unprecedented. But it is not.
“The individual involved in selling drugs would put the substances in the bags attached to the legs of these pigeons, which were trained to deliver them to another location in Kerman-shah,” the news agency quoted a local Judiciary official as saying. “Up to 100 drug-smuggling pigeons have been seized by the police.”
Pigeons are significant in Iranian culture and poetry. Pigeon racing was once a popular tradition, and some in rural areas and smaller cities still participate in the sport, holding vast numbers of pigeons on rooftops or in their gardens.
In May, officials in Kuwait said they had seized a pigeon carrying 178 illicit pills in a tiny backpack. Images carried by the Kuwaiti newspaper Ar-Rai showed a pigeon with a miniature fabric backpack attached to its back, full of pills containing ketamine. That incident took place in the city of Abdali, near the border with Iraq, suggesting pigeons were being used to smuggle drugs from there into Kuwait.
