MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian inmates use pigeons to smuggle cell phones

Brazilian police have discovered inmates using carrier pigeons to smuggle cell phones onto a prison farm in the south eastern state of Sao Paulo.

Police inspector Celso Soramiglio said that guards at a prison near the city of Sorocaba in the state of Sao Paulo caught a pigeon last Wednesday with components of a small cell phone inside a bag tied to one of its legs.

A day later, another pigeon was found with a bag containing a cell phone charger.

The birds apparently were bred and raised inside the prison, smuggled out, outfitted with the cell phone parts and then released to fly back.

Soramiglio noted that pigeons “instinctively fly back home — always”. He added police photographed the pigeons and then released them

The use of pigeons to smuggle contraband into jail is the latest twist in an ongoing struggle by criminal networks to deliver forbidden goods into Brazil’s prisons

Previously, the use of birds has been focused more towards smuggle contraband such as drugs, weapons, and money. The use of animals both for the prevention and innovations of crime is a world wide phenomenon.