Thanks to the efforts of one intrepid drug-sniffing dog, the feds discovered 268 kilos of cocaine stuffed inside shrimp last week, reports the New York Daily News.
The shipping container arrived at Red Hook Terminal after traveling from Guyana, according to court documents revealed Wednesday in Brooklyn Federal Court. Homeland Security agents confiscated the coke-filled crustaceans, but they left the shipping container alone to arrive at its final destination while they tracked it. Estimated street value of the confiscated cocaine: $12 million USD.
You can run but you can’t hide, cocaine shrimp!
On Monday, the shipping container was delivered to a Brooklyn warehouse, where agents watched as Heeralall Sukdeo and others organized and unloaded the shipment, according to the court complaint. Of course, even though he was caught in the act, Sukdeo later said he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
U.S. Homeland Security Special Agent Ryan Varrone described what happened next in the complaint:
But the container was addressed to a “Randolph Fraser,” which an employee told the agents is an alias used by Sukdeo.
Sukdeo’s lawyer, Andre Travieso, pointed out that Sukdeo had no prior arrest record. Then he said what any lawyer being paid by a client would probably say in this situation:
Sukdeo is currently being held without bail.
Maybe the feds have it all wrong, and coke-fueled shrimp are the real reason why U.K. tap water was turning up with traces of cocaine about a year ago? We also have to say, as ways to smuggle cocaine in foodstuffs go, this isn’t quite as clever as stuffing it inside hollowed-out pineapples.
At any rate, if hungry Homeland Security agents are looking for something to do with all those recently de-cocained shrimp, this Guyanese shrimp curry looks pretty good.
[via New York Daily News, Consumerist]