Flying high: Kuwait busts feather-brained pigeon drug-smuggling plot

A less than high-flying scheme to smuggle drugs into Kuwait has been foiled by the country's customs officers.

The officials, usually accustomed to finding stashed narcotics in luggage and parcels, this week caught a carrier pigeon attempting to infiltrate the tiny oil-rich Gulf state while carrying a load of illegal pills.

"In an incident, which could be a first in drug smuggling, customs officers in al-Abdali seized 178 narcotic pills wrapped around a homing pigeon," Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai reported on Monday.

That number may be an exaggeration, given the bird's tiny backpack.

It said that the officers had tracked the bird as it crossed into Kuwait from neighbouring Iraq and apprehended the would-be drug-runner on top of a building near the customs office.

The newspaper did not specify what drugs had been found and - more importantly - what it was about about the pigeon that had first raised suspicions of fowl play.

Pigeons have been used for centuries to deliver messages over long distances, but this is believed to be a first.


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