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Drugs
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Veterinarian Andres Lopez Elorez is sentenced for stitching heroin into puppies. One survivor became a police drug sniffer

  • Andres Lopez Elorez used the puppies as drug mules for Colombian traffickers, implanting packages of liquid heroin in them
  • Three dogs died, but survivors include Heroina, a Rottweiler trained by Colombian police to be a drug detection dog

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This 2005 photo provided by US Drug Enforcement Administration officials shows puppies rescued from a farm in Colombia destined for use by a veterinarian working for a Colombian drug trafficking ring. Veterinarian Andres Lopez Elorez used the puppies to smuggle packets of liquid heroin on commercial flights to New York City, where the heroin packets were eventually cut out of the puppies, who died in the process, officials said. Photo: AP
Associated Press

A US veterinarian who surgically implanted liquid heroin in puppies on behalf of Colombian drug traffickers was sentenced to six years in prison on Thursday.

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One of the puppies went on to become a drug-detection dog named Heroina.

This 2005 photo provided by US Drug Enforcement Administration officials shows puppies rescued from a farm in Colombia destined for use by a veterinarian working for a Colombian drug trafficking ring. Veterinarian Andres Lopez Elorez used the puppies to smuggle packets of liquid heroin on commercial flights to New York City, where the heroin packets were eventually cut out of the puppies, who died in the process, officials said. Photo: AP
This 2005 photo provided by US Drug Enforcement Administration officials shows puppies rescued from a farm in Colombia destined for use by a veterinarian working for a Colombian drug trafficking ring. Veterinarian Andres Lopez Elorez used the puppies to smuggle packets of liquid heroin on commercial flights to New York City, where the heroin packets were eventually cut out of the puppies, who died in the process, officials said. Photo: AP

The sentence for Andres Lopez Elorez was announced in Brooklyn by US Attorney Richard Donoghue and other law enforcement officials.

Elorez, who pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to import heroin into the United States, was part of a scheme that turned puppies and dogs into drug couriers by stitching packets of liquid heroin into their bodies.

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The US government said Elorez leased a farm in Medellin, Colombia, where he secretly raised dogs and surgically implanted bags of liquid heroin in nine puppies for importation.

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