Police dogs in Italy may soon be out of a job as another type of animal appears to be doing their job for them.
Sorry, doggo. Enter feral hogs, who somehow managed to take down an entire drug operation in Tuscany recently by finding a stash of cocaine worth $22,000 (£17,000) hidden in a forest. Police had placed a wiretap on members of the suspected drug gang and had been listening in to their calls when they heard something that sparked their interest. Police heard the gang complaining the clever animals unearthed and broke into a sealed package of cocaine hidden in the Tuscan forest, near Montepulciano, before scattering the contents through woodland.
Sorry, doggo. Enter feral hogs, who somehow managed to take down an entire drug operation in Tuscany recently by finding a stash of cocaine worth $22,000 (£17,000) hidden in a forest. Police had placed a wiretap on members of the suspected drug gang and had been listening in to their calls when they heard something that sparked their interest. Police heard the gang complaining the clever animals unearthed and broke into a sealed package of cocaine hidden in the Tuscan forest, near Montepulciano, before scattering the contents through woodland.
With this information, police were able to dismantle the entire smuggling operation. Four suspects an Italian and three Albanians were arrested on drug charges after the bust, which left two members in jail and two under house arrest, Italian newspaper Il Tirreno reported. The gang first came to the attention of police during an investigation into the murder of a 21-year-old Albanian in May last year, with officials soon learning of a scheme allegedly funnelling drugs from the Italian city Perugia to various provinces, including Siena and Arezzo.
The investigation, which spanned from September 2018 to March 2019, discovered one of the gang members was allegedly distributing drugs via a nightclub in Arezzo. Police said the suspects traded approximately two kilograms of cocaine every month, with the gang netting the equivalent of between $90 and $120 per gram. A profitable business, until the boars dug up and destroyed $22,000 worth in the forest. Wild boar are found in ever-increasing numbers in the Italian countryside, but it’s not just drug dealers who have been affected by them. Just this month, farmers in Rome called for action from the government, complaining the animals are to blame for land damage and road accidents,.