Thanks to its detection dogs, the Paraguayan National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD, in Spanish) has discovered unusual methods to hide narcotics at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, in the Asunción metropolitan area.
On November 23, 2020, agents opened two mail parcels that were seized days prior, in order to discover the methods narcotraffickers use.
One of the parcels contained 34 cans of peaches in syrup, but canine Asterix detected drugs inside. “Inside the cans we found more than 17 kilograms of ‘VIP’ marijuana [with a high concentration of THC],” SENAD reported.
The cans of peaches came from San Diego, California, and were bound for Ciudad del Este in the Tri-border area.
Another package that was bound for India contained 463 grams of cocaine inside children’s books, such as Little Red Riding Hood. “Canine Bono gave the warning signal to begin the procedure,” SENAD said.
On November 11, officers opened another five packages detected by the dogs. One of them, bound for Australia, contained two bottles of kombucha (a fermented tea) with more than 3 kg of liquid cocaine, in addition to 528 grams of cocaine hidden in a picture frame.
“The package was detained thanks to the intervention of special agents and Vanna, our [canine] drug detector,” SENAD reported.
Another package bound for Australia contained 1 kg of cocaine saturated onto 12 postcards of South American tourist spots. Canine Vito detected the drug.
Canine Erick detected the third package, which was bound for Sri Lanka and contained more than 8 kg of liquid cocaine inside hair conditioners, cosmetics, and children’s bubble blowers.
Erick also sniffed the fourth parcel, which was bound for Hong Kong. “[Authorities] found two industrial machine catalogs whose pages were soaked with 1 kg and 816 grams of cocaine,” the Paraguayan newspaper Última Hora reported.
With the help of canine Zack, agents seized the fifth package, which was bound for Hong Kong and contained two jackets and a shirt of Paraguay’s national soccer team. “There were 627 grams of cocaine hidden in the jacket’s fillings,” SENAD said.
