MOSCOW, MARCH 24. (RIA NOVOSTI). Fifty out of three hundred ill-starred parrots did not stand the journey as smugglers were getting them doped to Russia from Ukraine.
Russian customs officers stopped a VAZ 21063 car, two Ukrainian nationals in it, at the Novye Yurkovichi highway checkpoint. There were nine shoe boxes inside. The driver said he had young chicken in them. When the officers opened the cardboard containers, they saw 298 parrots, fifty dead. The survivors appeared badly intoxicated-doped or drunk. An investigation is on, and criminal proceedings may be launched.
The exotic birds' odyssey appeared in a press release of the Bryansk customs office in Russia's south-west, which is responsible for the Russian-Ukrainian and Russian-Belorussian frontiers.
