In 2017, Kuwait customs agents noticed something strange: there were more pigeons than usual flying over the area near the border with Iraq.
One of them eventually landed near the Customs building in Abdali, and when they captured it, they discovered the unthinkable. Attached to its back was a small backpack, the color of its own feathers, containing 178 ecstasy pills.
According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai and Al Arabiya, the bird had reportedly set off from Iraq. The agents already had suspicions and had long believed that pigeons were being used for trafficking, but it was the first time they had caught one in the act.
The viral photo reached Twitter thanks to British composer Cass Lowe and accumulated more than 150.000 likes and 64.000 retweets in just a few hours. Similar incidents had happened before in Costa Rica and Colombia, where other pigeons carried cocaine and marijuana into prisons. The difference is that this time the contraband was crossing an entire country by air.