Police discovered pigeons carrying backpacks filled with drugs(Photos)

 Police discovered pigeons carrying backpacks filled with drugs. Smugglers were using the birds because they can fly long distances and still find their way back home.

 

A second pigeon wearing a tiny makeshift backpack presumably meant for smuggling drugs has been found at a corrections facility in Abbotsford, B.C., nearly two months to the day after a bird carrying a package of crystal meth was found at the prison next door.

Officers discovered the latest bird wearing its backpack inside Matsqui Institution during a routine search on the morning of Feb. 27, according to its union. The backpack, possibly made from cut-up jeans, was empty — leading guards to believe the bird might have still been in training.

"It was actually inside the institution where they actually found the pigeon, again wearing a small fabric-like backpack," said John Randle, Pacific regional president of the Union for Canadian Correctional Officers.

"Where did it come from, and what was happening? That's kind of the big discussion right now."

Homing pigeons have been used to smuggle drugs into prisons for decades, valued for their ability to fly long distances to return to their "home" lofts. Experts say it would be possible to train a bird to see a prison as its home loft, so it would fly into the institution with cargo attached on the outside.

It's an old-school smuggling tactic that's challenging to investigate.

"We've been dealing with drones ... We've been dealing with throw-overs. We've been dealing with smuggling, and now we have to deal with the wildlife aspect, which is completely new to us," Randle said.

"With a pigeon being a wild animal, it's a wild card