Crime

Strange Security: Drugs in Strange Places Edition

By Scott Briscoe

3 September 2024

In the past month, our editors ran across an inordinate number of articles highlighting the strange places drugs have been found.

But first, our standard disclaimer: Security is serious business, and drug trafficking is also serious. While we take a lighter approach to this monthly round-up, we understand there may be victims in these stories, and we do not wish to diminish the harm these serious things can cause.

Number 5 “Watermelons:” One look at the photos in this NPR article and it’s not hard to see how the would-be smugglers of $5 million in methamphetamine were caught. The drugs were wrapped in packages that had a vague similarity to two halves of a watermelon taped together and then interspersed in a shipment of actual watermelons.

Number 4 Human Waste: No, criminals have not gone so far as to traffic drugs in dung yet (at least they weren’t caught doing so). Environmental researchers in the UK monitoring rivers raised the alarm as pharmaceuticals in rivers throughout England reached levels of concern. The researchers reason that most of pharmaceutical contaminants are likely passed through humans, although flushing of unused medication also contributes to the issue.

Number 3 Hard Candy: In New Zealand, a charity handed out sweets as part of a food parcel for those in need. Unfortunately, the charity had received a batch of methamphetamine in small pieces individually wrapped in candy wrappers. Don’t mistake the size, though, each “candy” contained 300 doses of meth and was worth approximately $600 on the street.

Number 2 Fast Food: There were multiple reports of drugs being hidden in fast food recently. In Lee County, North Carolina, police found cocaine hidden in a cheeseburger. A Tennessee woman thought fentanyl was better hidden inside tortillas and then rewrapped with Taco Bell wrappers.

Number 1 Celery: That same Mexican border checkpoint that busted the fake watermelon meth shipment also seized 2,300 pounds of meth that was hidden in a shipment of celery bound for a farmer’s market in Atlanta, Georgia. Stay tuned, our editors are searching the newswires for the next produce shipment drugs bust. Betting favorites include lettuce, or maybe rutabaga.