These Cat Criminals Defy Prison Walls AND Stereotypes

This cat was caught smuggling contraband into prison. He was later released.

The difference between cats and dogs is clear when it comes to law enforcement.  Cops have dogs, and criminals have cats. Recent news stories suggest that cat crime is something to watch.

Today’s feline felons have found a niche in countries where, apparently, cats are allowed to roam in and out of the prisons any old time they want. Kitties have now been busted smuggling contraband into high security prisons in Russia, Eastern Europe, and beyond.

An astute guard earlier this year at Brazil’s Romero Nobrega prison noticed a cat entering the cell block wearing a little jacket that seemed suspicious. Upon pat-down, the jacket was found to contain no less than four cell phones.

In 2013, a Moldovan cat was detained for smuggling cannabis into prison using a special collar that caught a wary guard’s eye. That’s according to DailyMail.com, who also reported that one prison had caught a cat attempting to enter their compound with a saw and drill taped to its body. Now that’s brazen!

Technical questions aside (like, how??), you have to wonder what happens to the cats caught red-handed. The fate of these mules and couriers isn’t always clear. However, in the case of the Moldovan kitty, it was released on its own recognizance. Can you say “kitty sting operation”?

So far the cat prison crime wave hasn’t reached the U.S., where cats are generally not allowed to flit in and out of death row, etc. Nonetheless, the criminal-cat connection here is not a question of ‘when’ so much as ‘why?’

Last month, a Virginia television station reported that a Mexican national escaped custody by putting his GPS ankle device on his cat. It was obviously cruel, since the device had a loud alert sound and the authorities took days to show up. What’s amazing here is that an alleged hardened drug dealer from Mexico even has a cat. That really goes against all the cat-person stereotypes.

In conclusion, these criminals are dirty rotten scoundrels to recruit innocent-ish cats to their illegal activities. Cats can be criminal masterminds when badly influenced by the wrong people.  Nonetheless, some cat criminals still have too much conscience for a freewheeling life of crime.  I’m sure this cat from New York isn’t the first kitty convict to walk into the police station and turn himself in.

“K-9 your job is mine.” Reformed cat criminals make the best police cats.