Colombian vet charged in U.S. with smuggling heroin in puppies’ bellies

Drug Enforcement Administration photo shows puppies as DEA announces an indictment charging Andres Lopez Elorez with conspiring to import and distribute heroin into the U.S. by surgically implanting these puppies with liquid heroin 12 years ago, in this image released in New York, U.S., on May 1, 2018. DEA/Handout via REUTERS

By Jon Herskovitz

(Reuters) – A veterinarian from Colombia was charged with illegally smuggling narcotics into the United States by surgically implanting packets of liquid heroin into the bellies of puppies, U.S. prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Andres Lopez Elorez was arraigned in a federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday on an indictment of conspiring to import and distribute heroin into the United States, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said.

Elorez, 38, pleaded not guilty, U.S. news reports said.

His court-appointed lawyer, Mitchell Dinnerstein, said his client “doesn’t have any real connection” to the United States, the New York Times reported. Dinnerstein was not immediately available for comment.

Elorez faces up to life imprisonment if convicted, U.S. prosecutors said.

“Dogs are man’s best friend and, as the defendant is about to learn, we are drug dealers’ worst enemy,” Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

Elorez is suspected of taking part in a conspiracy to bring drugs into the country more than a decade ago, prosecutors said.

The puppies, mostly purebred dogs including Labrador retrievers, had their bellies cut open and heroin stitched in. They were then exported to the United States with the smugglers hoping the dogs’ pedigrees would help ease their path through customs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has said.

A 2005 raid in Colombia found 10 dogs to be used as drug couriers who were rescued, but many puppies died in the operation, it said.

Elorez was arrested in Spain and extradited to the United States, prosecutors said.

“He 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,” Donoghue said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Paul Tait)

U.S. visa applicants to be asked for social media history: State Department

FILE PHOTO - A man is silhouetted against a video screen with a Twitter and a Facebook logo as he poses with a laptop in this photo illustration taken in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, August 14, 2013. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – The U.S. government plans to collect social media history from nearly everyone who seeks entry into the United States, State Department proposals showed on Friday as part of President Donald Trump’s policy of “extreme vetting.”

Most immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants – about 14.7 million people – will be asked to list on a federal application form all of the social media identities that they have used in the past five years – information that will be used to vet and identify them, according to the proposals.

The State Department will publish the proposals in a notice in the Federal Register on Friday seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The public has 60 days to comment on the requests.

The proposals support President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge in 2016 to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons and his call for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States.

The department said it intends not to routinely ask most diplomatic and official visa applicants for the social media information.

If approved, applicants also will be required to submit five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses and their international travel history. They will be asked if they have been deported or removed from any country and whether family members have been involved in terrorist activities, the department said.

Courts have struck down the first two versions of Trump’s travel ban and the current one is narrower in scope than its predecessors. The Supreme Court will consider its legality this spring and a decision is expected in June.

(Editing by Bill Trott)