Vet accused of stitching bags of heroin into pups’ bodies
A VET has appeared in court accused of stitching packets of heroin into puppies’ bodies as part of a drug smuggling ring.
Andres Lopez Elorza appeared in court in Brooklyn after being extradited from Spain.
It is alleged he was involved in a Colombian drug racket that saw puppies implanted
with liquid heroin and BY TOM HAYS flown on commercial flights to New York, where the drugs were cut out of the dogs’ stomachs.
Investigators believe the puppies would have died in the process.
Lopez Elorza, 38, fled in 2005 when authorities arrested about 12 suspected traffickers in Colombia.
Prosecutor Nathan Reilly said that before the defendant went on the run, he had “gained some notoriety” from claims that he was part of a scheme that turned puppies into “animal couriers”.
Ten puppies were found during a 2005 raid on a farm in Colombia, officials said.
Colombian-born Lopez Elorza, who was arrested in Spain in 2015 on a US warrant, denies the charges.
James Hunt, of the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York office, said: “Over time, drug organisations’ unquenchable thirst for profit leads them to do unthinkable crimes like using puppies for drug concealment.”
Prosecutor Richard Donoghue told a federal court in Brooklyn: “Dogs are man’s best friend and, as the defendant is about to learn, we are drug dealers’ worst enemy.”