Fact check: No, New York police didn't catch pigeons carrying drugs in little backpacks

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·2 min read

The claim: New York police caught pigeons with 'backpacks carrying illicit substances'

A Jan. 16 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows four photos of pigeons carrying small pouches of what appear to be drugs.

"New York police caught a group of pigeons with backpacks carrying illicit substances," reads the post. "People can think."

The post was shared more than 500 times in a week. Similar posts were shared widely on Instagram and Twitter.

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Our rating: False

The photos in the post are several years old and show birds caught carrying drugs in separate incidents in Costa Rica and Kuwait. A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said the images were "not an NYPD matter."

Photos show birds caught with drugs in Costa Rica, Kuwait

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department refuted the claim in the post.

"This is not an NYPD matter," the spokesperson told USA TODAY in an email, noting the picture have been online for years.

Reverse image searches show the four photos in the post were originally published alongside reports of two drug busts that took place outside of the U.S.

The two photos of a dark-colored pigeon with a pouch on its front were taken in August 2015 after prison guards in Costa Rica captured the bird, which had been used in an attempt to smuggle cocaine and marijuana inside the prison, according to multiple news reports from the time.

The other two photos show a light-colored pigeon with a pouch on its back caught by customs officials in Kuwait near the Iraqi border in May 2017, news reports say. The bird was carrying a total of 178 pills in its pouch.

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USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment.

Reuters also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Photos of pigeons carrying drugs are old, not from NYPD