STATESBORO, Ga.—Three Georgia women bought a box of Legos while visiting a South Carolina consignment shop, only to find that the box was actually filled with about $40,000 worth of methamphetamine.
Bulloch County Sheriff’s Investigator Jim Riggs tells The Statesboro Herald that the women gifted the box to a child, who opened it and discovered the three pounds of drugs.
Deputies say the women turned the drugs over to the sheriff’s office, who called in Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Riggs says authorities determined the drugs were likely mailed to the wrong address.
He says dealers often ship drugs to empty or abandoned addresses to be picked up, but United States Postal Service often won’t leave packages at those sites. Instead, they’re often left with a neighbor or auctioned off when unclaimed.
Later these unclaimed packages are sold at auctions and the Drug Enforcement Agency agents believe that’s where the Lego box containing the meth came from.
Riggs said the child was upset when he opened the box, but the people who were meant to receive the mailed shipment of the drugs would have been even more disappointed.
Police didn’t hold the three women and the South Carolina consignment shop responsible as they were not aware of the actual contents of the box.
Parrot Trained to Warn Drug Dealers
In another strange drug-related incidence a parrot has been taken into custody following a police raid targeting drug dealers in northeast Brazil.
The bird had been taught to warn its owners of a police presence by shouting “Mamãe, polícia!” or “Mama, police!” according to a report from Globo, a major Brazilian television network.
The bird was seized in Vila Irma Dulce on April 22 and sent to the Flagrant Center of Teresina, the capital of Brazilian state Piauí. Police say the parrot has not said anything while in custody.
Major Mello of the 17th military police battalion told Globo that the animal impressed the police.
“He must have been trained for that. He began to scream as soon as the police approached,” he said.
According to the police, the parrot’s owner is a woman going by the name “India” who has been arrested twice for drug trafficking. Police say the woman was in bed due to an accident, and it was her husband who was using the parrot.
The man, identified as Edvan, 30, was arrested after police found a crack in the house and the man’s teenage daughter was seized with marijuana hidden inside her underwear. Both of them were sent to the Flagrant Center, where police investigate flagrant crimes. The girl was later released.
It is not the first time parrots have been used by drug dealers to warn of nearby law enforcement.
In 2010, a parrot by the name of Lorenzo was seized after being caught warning drug traffickers of police presence in Columbia.
Lorenzo was reportedly trained to call out every time a police officer went near the traffickers’ headquarters. When presented to media after his capture, he said, “Run, run, the cat is going to eat you.”
When police caught on to the ruse, they were able to sneak past the avian lookout, where they discovered weapons, marijuana, and two more trained parrots, according to the Telegraph. Four men were also arrested in the raid.
Authorities claimed that Lorenzo was one of nearly 1,700 parrots trained by drug traffickers that police have seized, the Telegraph reports.
The Associated Press, Epoch Times reporter Venus Upadhayaya and Margaret Wollensak contributed to this report.
