Russian police have thwarted a scheme in which criminals used carrier pigeons to deliver drugs to inmates of a penal colony. The birds also carried the payment for the drugs outside the correctional facility.

The Interfax news agency quoted a report by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office as saying that a police patrol has stopped a suspicious looking car near a high security penal colony in South Russia’s Astrakhan region. Policemen searched the car and found several plastic bottles each containing a live carrier pigeon and a dose of narcotic substance. Investigators suppose that the criminals threw the bottles over the fence into the colony. Inmates collected them and released the pigeons with notes and payment for the drugs. The birds carried this cargo to their masters.

A criminal case has been started under the illegal drug trade article, the report said.

MosNews