An odd narcotics smuggling drama played out in a prison in the Tatarstan city of Mendeleyevsk, where a female cat used to smuggle heroin to an inmate was killed by a drug-sniffing dog, Interfax reported Thursday.
The inmate, whose name was not released, adopted the cat in prison and later managed to smuggle it outside to his friends, who starved the creature for days before releasing it with 15 grams of heroin in its collar, expecting that the cat would find its way to the inmate.
But prison officials were aware of the scheme and sicced the police dog on the cat, which was injured in the resulting fight and soon died, partly because it was weakened by being malnourished, a prison spokeswoman told Interfax.
The inmate and his accomplices face charges of animal abuse, she said.
(MT)
