A veterinarian is accused of implanting liquid heroin in puppies to turn them into drug mules for a Colombian trafficking ring.
Colombian-born Andres Lopez Elorez appeared in a US federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday after being extradited from Spain, where he was arrested in 2015.
Lopez Elorez, 38, who also goes by the surname Lopez Elorza, fled in 2005 when authorities arrested about two dozen suspected traffickers in Colombia.
His arrest was part of a 12-year Drug Enforcement Administration investigation. If convicted on conspiracy charges, he risks spending at least 10 years and potentially life behind bars.
Authorities allege that between September 2004 and January 2005 Elorez was a member of a Colombian ring smuggling heroin into the US using various methods, including human and dog couriers.
It is believed the dogs were sent on commercial flights to New York, where the drugs were cut out of them. Investigators believe the puppies would have died in the process, but it was unknown how many were involved.
“As alleged in the indictment, Elorez is not only a drug trafficker, he also betrayed a veterinarian’s pledge to prevent animal suffering when he used his surgical skills in a cruel scheme to smuggle heroin in the abdomens of puppies,” US attorney Richard Donoghue said. “Dogs are man’s best friend and, as the defendant is about to learn, we are drug dealers’ worst enemy.”
Ten puppies were found during a 2005 raid on a farm in Colombia, DEA officials said. Five ended up running away, three died from infection and two were adopted, including one that became a drug-sniffing dog for Colombian police, officials said.
“Over time, drug organisations’ unquenchable thirst for profit leads them to do unthinkable crimes like using innocent puppies for drug concealment,” the head of the DEA’s New York division, James Hunt, said.
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.