Malaysian police have just arrested an Iranian carrying a large sculpture of a tiger’s head—which just happened to made entirely of the drug methamphetamine.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport police arrested the 26-year-old Iranian man last Thursday after customs officers became suspicious when they looked over the sculpture, which the man claimed to be an ornamental piece.
He had carefully packed the 8.4-kilogram (18.5-lb) drug sculpture in Styrofoam in a souvenir box, as if it were intended as a gift.
“The tiger’s head is just another tactic the traffickers are using,” said Hisan Hamzah, Selangor state police chief.
Police officials say that traffickers are increasingly using innovative ways to smuggle illegal substances. A day before the tiger’s head was seized, a 31-year-old Nigerian man was arrested for hiding 1.01 kilos of drugs inside 15 salted fish in his suitcase.
An Iranian was caught last year with drugs stuffed into his peg leg. And a group of Iranian women clad in chadors thought that would save them from body searches. It didn’t.
Meanwhile, in Iran, authorities made the largest drug bust in the country’s history Saturday, seizing 8,685 kilograms of opium near Kerman.
Kerman police chief Hos-sain Chenarian put the value of the haul at $12.3 million.
