A recent attempt to smuggle over 600 pounds of weed inside two coffins turned out to be a dead end for Colombian drug smugglers.
Colombian Policía de Tránsito y Transporte foiled this drug smuggling attempt at a police checkpoint in North Santander this Tuesday. Officers flagged a Renault Megane hearse for a search after noticing that the vehicle’s driver was extremely nervous. Two officers struggled to lift a heavy coffin from the back of the hearse, and soon discovered the driver had a good reason to be worried.
The hearse contained two coffins, which were packed with 514 wrapped packages of weed, amounting to over 660 pounds of black market grass. Police valued this shipment at 150 million pesos, or $7.5 million US. The hearse’s driver, who was bringing his secret stash from the city of Cucuta, was detained by cops and will now face prosecution.
Gallery — Sneaky Stash Cans:
But Colombia is actually way ahead of the US when it comes to cannabis reform. The South American nation legalized medical marijuana way back in 2015, and made moves to allow legal exports of Colombian-grown grass to other countries. In 2017, the country’s leaders set aside land once used for illegal drug trafficking to be used for legal weed farming. And this June, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that Colombian citizens had the constitutional right to smoke weed in public.
But regardless of Colombia’s bold moves towards full cannabis reform, smuggling millions of dollars worth of weed in a hearse is still unquestionably against the law.
Although a failure, the smugglers’ attempt to use coffins to smuggle weed still gets points for creativity. Drug cartels seem to have no shortage of creative ideas for smuggling massive quantities of weed, disguising it as carrots, rocks, jalapeño peppers, or Christmas presents. Other harebrained smugglers have tried to launch weed over the US border in an improvised cannon or smuggle coke through an airport under a terrible toupee.
As unique and creative as these schemes are, they all have one thing in common: they all failed to evade the watchful eye of the law.
