From Plants to Fruits, Traffickers Ingenious in Moving Drugs
Drug traffickers have become more ingenious in their methods to avoid detection by authorities to ship narcotics out of the country. Police have found illegal drugs hidden in sound equipment, flowers, paintings, shoes and bottles of liquor.

It appears that the only limit drug traffickers have to avoid detection is their imagination, according to officials of the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública, the Organismo de Investigacíon Judicial (OIJ) and the Policía de Control de Drogas (PCD).

Gerardo Láscarez, vice- minister of Security, said that "drug traffickers are very ingenious, and that is the reason why they never seize to be amazed."

Cocaine, marijuana, heroin and crack have been found in unimaginable places.

"We have detected narcotics in plastic plants, mixed in with shipments of pineapples, in beer bottles and mayonnaise jars", said OIJ director Jorge Rojas.

The PCD added that drugs have been found stuffed in anal and vaginal cavities. Narcotics have been hidden in cellular telephones, television sets and other electronic equipment.

This year, from January to May, the Ministerio de Seguridad and the PCD have confiscated more than 2.500 Kgs of cocaine, 126 Kgs of marijuana along with 71.141 marijuana plants and 3.450 tablets of extacy.

The narcotics haul since 1994 is valued at more than ¢284 billion colones (us$395 million dollars).

Rojas commented that "it is significant what we have achieved, for we calculate that we have only confiscated 10% of what is moved through the country."

The OIJ director added the work of the K-9 unit is vital to their efforts, because, "in many cases, we humans are incapable of detecting the drugs, while the dogs can sniff them out easily. The bad part is that the methods of the traffickers are continually changing."