Colombian veterinarian sentenced to six years in prison because of turning puppies into drug mules

5years ago

New York City news, New York news.

A Colombian veterinarian implanted puppies with drugs, he was sentenced Thursday to six years behind the barriers.

In a federal courtroom in Brooklyn, NY, Andres Lopez Elorez was convicted of conspiring to import heroin. The case against him began in 2005, after Colombian police broke into his farm in Medellin, Colombia, and discovered 10 bags of liquid heroin implanted in nine dogs and seven other bags for use in Colombia. pharmacy and for surgeries. The heroine was to be sent to New York.

Three dogs died after contracting a virus as a result of these operations. Several others have found new homes. The case against Elorez, 39, was blocked after his escape to Spain before his arrest in 2015 in that city. He added that his mentor, a professor of veterinary medicine in Colombia, had convinced him to smuggle drugs, a period he called "a dark chapter of my life".

"At the age of 21, when he met the professor, he fell in love with this man," Elorez's lawyer Mitchell Dinnerstein told the New York Daily News.

Elorez has already spent more than three years in prison in Spain and New York, which will count for his sentence. He will be deported either to Spain, where his family lives, or to Colombia after serving his sentence.