Drug-smuggling cat caught carrying cannabis parcels into Moldova prison

The feline felon was busted trying to break in to Penitenciarului Nr 9 prison
He was caught trying to smuggle in two bags of cannabis to inmates
Authorities suspect someone in the village of Pruncul is supplying the drugs

By
Stuart Woledge

PUBLISHED:

13:11 GMT, 19 October 2013

|

UPDATED:

14:20 GMT, 19 October 2013

Prison guards nabbed an audacious cat after it was caught red-handed trying to smuggle two bags of cannabis into a prison in Moldova.

The prison authorities are now looking for the moggy’s trainer, who they believe may live in the nearby village of Pruncul and has been supplying inmates with illegal drugs for some time.

The prison officers became suspicious of the grey and white cat, which regularly came and went through a hole in the fence, when they noticed it was wearing a peculiar collar.

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Busted: This cat was caught by prison officers entering a prison in Moldova carrying cannabis

When they apprehended the cat, they found two packets of marijuana attached to it.

A video of the find has been posted online by the justice ministry.

It shows one officer gently stroking the bemused cat while the purple collar is removed.

A second officer then cuts through two lumps in the collar, to reveal cannabis in its herb form.

The Department of Penitentiary Institutions said yesterday that someone in the nearby village of Pruncul was using the cat as a courier to supply inmates with the drug at Penitenciarului Nr 9 prison.

It is not the first time cats have been used in East European countries to evade capture by prison authorities.

Contraband: Prison officers were alerted to the smuggling cat after noticing its suspicious collar

In June, guards caught a cat carrying mobile phones and chargers, that had been taped to its belly, to inmates in Penal Colony No. 1 near the city of Syktyvkar in northern Russia.

And in August last year police in South Russia’s Rostov region foiled a plot to use a cat to smuggle heroin into a prison, according to a report in the Moscow Times.

The cat had been taken out of the prison by inmates following their release, who smuggled the animal out in their bags and gave it to drug dealers waiting outside.

They then stuffed the drug into the cat’s collar, and released the animal, which sneaked back into the prison.

In a similar case in 2010, a heroin-carrying cat was killed by a prison do while trying to enter a prison in Tatarstan.

The evasion tactics have also been used by inmates in Arapiraca city, in Brazil’s northeastern Alagoas state.

Earlier this year a cat was caught trying to slip through the gates with tools, including a saw and a drill, tapped to its body.