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Pigeon Caught Smuggling Drugs Using Tiny, Bird-Sized Backpack

It'd be cute if it weren't so damn illegal.

Call it a case of high-flying criminal activity: A homing pigeon has been busted in the Middle East for carrying a tiny backpack filled with illegal drugs.

Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai reported the bird was caught Tuesday trying to smuggle almost 200 pills that contained a form of ketamine.

Kuwaiti customs agents tracked the bird's flight patterns from a location inside Iraq and caught the bird above a building near the Kuwait customs' department, reported local news outlet al-Arabiya.

Journalist Abdullah Fahmi told the BBC that customs officials have known for some time that smugglers in the area are using pigeons to move drugs, but this is the first time they've managed to catch one of the birds.

It isn’t the first time a bird has been nabbed for smuggling narcotics.

In 2011 guards at a Colombian prison reportedly caught a bird attempting to fly cocaine and weed into the jail. It never made it to its destination, however — officials said the weight of the drugs was too much for the bird and it was found about one block from the prison.

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