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Drug Smuggling Cat Escapes High-Security Prison

A feline drug mule is now off the leash.
drug cat
Photos for illustrative purposes only, courtesy of Vincent Creton/Unsplash (left); HowToGymUnsplash

Cats, those inscrutable creatures. They largely ignore you except when they want food, scratch you if they’re in no mood for your PDA, and refuse to move from their temporary bed on your work table because we all know who really rules the world. Anyone with cats as a pet can confirm that these felines are highly intelligent and borderline manipulative beings. So intelligent that if it is this one particular cat from Sri Lanka, it can also casually escape prison. That is, after being caught smuggling drugs.

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In a strange turn of events even by 2020 standards, a drug mule cat detained in Sri Lanka’s Welikada prison escaped its prison cell on August 2. The cat was found near the jail with nearly two grams of heroin, two SIM cards, and a memory chip. It was carrying the goods in a small plastic bag tied around its neck when the prison intelligence officials, acting on information received in the prison, captured it on August 1. 

It was detained for an entire day in a cell but it escaped the room the next day. It did so when guards stepped inside the cell in an attempt to feed it. The prison had reported an increase in incidents of people throwing small packets—drugs, cell phones, and phone chargers—over the wall. The authorities, however, will not seek any further investigation of this criminal animal. 

This feline however is not the first to have been caught smuggling drugs—and to have escaped. In October 2019, a cat was caught smuggling hashish in its collar in Russia. Its capture was pivotal in the drug smuggling case but it escaped.

In Sri Lanka as well, this is not the first time a member of the animal kingdom has been found smuggling drugs. Just last week, Sri Lankan cops seized a smuggler eagle as well. The bird was allegedly used to smuggle drugs on the behalf of a Sri Lankan criminal ringleader in a suburb in the commercial capital Colombo. 

In March, the country also executed its biggest ever drugs bust carried out at sea. The Sri Lankan navy seized two foreign trawlers off the coast near Colombo and seized $65 million worth of crystal methamphetamine and ketamine.

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