Feral Hogs Partly Consume Almost $20k Worth of Cocaine in Italy

Feral hogs sniffed out a stash of cocaine that had been buried in an Italian forest by drug dealers earlier this year, according to police who had wiretapped the gang in connection with a murder investigation. The coke, nearly $20,000 worth, was at least partly consumed by wild boar as they dug up the drug and spread across the floor of a Tuscan forest.

Italian police learned of the cocaine-swiping swine during the investigation of the May murder of a 21-year-old Albanian who is suspected of being a drug dealer. After setting up a wiretap to monitor the phones of the gang, made up of one Italian and three Albanians, in connection with the murder, police heard them complaining about the incident.

The gang had allegedly been selling about two kilos of cocaine per month in the cities of Siena and Arezzo in Tuscany from September 2018 until March 2019. They were selling high-quality coke for about $95 per gram in bars and night clubs in the two cities, attempting to conceal their actions by using words as ‘aperitivo,’ ‘prosecco,’ ‘vino,’ and ‘caffè,’ as part of a code that was quickly cracked by police.

The drug dealers had been storing their cocaine in jars before burying it in the Valdichiana Valley. But that wasn’t enough to dissuade the greedy grunters. It isn’t known how many bingeing boar blew through the blow or what became of them.

The four members of the drug gang were arrested following the investigation and the wiretapped phone call. Two have been sent to prison, while the remaining two have been placed under house arrest.

Wild Boar Wreaking Havoc

Coke dealers aren’t the only ones fed up with feral hogs roaming the Italian countryside. Earlier this month, a group of farmers held a protest in Rome calling on government officials to do something about the problem. Coldiretti Ettore Prandini, the president of an Italian farming association, said that the country’s population of wild boar is estimated to be about two million. The wild pigs cause incredible damage to farmlands and wild habitats, and boar on roadways have led to car collisions with fatal consequences.

“It is no longer just a question of compensation but a matter of personal safety and it must be resolved,” Prandini said.

“Ministries and leaders of regions and municipalities must act in a concerted manner to draw up an extraordinary plan without administrative obstacles, otherwise the problem is destined to get worse,” he added.