Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Monday 5 July 2010

Los gánsteres de la colina de lavanda


Are they keen on Ealing comedies in the Colombian jungle? I only ask because the tactics of one smuggling gang suggest they’ve been spending their evenings watching Alec Guinness & co transforming stolen bullion into souvenir statuettes.

The replica World Cup trophy found in a package destined for Madrid contains 24lb of cocaine crafted into, it has to be said, a rather crude and slightly lopsided facsimile – one imagines Carlos painstakingly scraping and prodding it, muttering darkly that ‘sculpture’s much more difficult than it looks and if Diego thinks he can do better he’s welcome to try’.

Mind you, they’re not lacking in resourcefulness in the Colombian underworld – at least if the other discovery made this week is anything to go by. A hundred-foot long home-made submarine, complete with conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning suggests an impressive degree of organisation and ingenuity.

It all has the makings of a classic film - except for the nature of its purpose. But just think – if all this ability could be harnessed into another money-making industry based on escaping reality for a couple of hours at a time, Bogotá could one day become the movie-making capital of the world.

Update: Of course, if cocaine were universally legalised, they'd be out of business and looking for other work. Concidentally, Thaddeus J. Wilson has posted on that very topic today at Anna Raccoon.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Moderation is on as I’m having some technical difficulties with Comments