smuggling

Anyone looking for a career that is exciting, creative and full of surprises can find it right here in southern Arizona.

You can go into drug smuggling.

This lucrative and enticing opportunity will never have you hunkered over a cramped computer for hours on end.

Nor will you be subjected to excruciating board meetings, layoffs due to the recession or those horrible dress code things that always got me in trouble at the insurance office on Madison Avenue.

You make your own hours, wear what you will and earn enough cash to buy fancy sharkskin suits and machine guns.

In a bustling week starting June 5, the Arizona Department of Public Safety seized more than $830,000 in suspected drug cash; 35 pounds of cocaine; three pounds of methamphetamine; and, with the help of some other agencies, 660 pounds of marijuana.

One caveat, of course, is you cannot get caught.

But hauls similar to those could be yours if you use some ingenuity.

All types of strange places have been used for drug smuggling, so you need to come up with something new.

Drugs stuffed in the dashboard, car seats and fuel tanks are old hat. So are drugs stuffed in old hats, wheel wells and vehicle trunks, engines and speakers.

One that could have been ingenuous was foiled because the smuggler got carried away.

A man with a tractor-trailer full of watermelon was crossing the border earlier this month with cocaine stuffed in a very creative place.

No, not in the watermelon. Drugs stuffed in foodstuff is also passé and obvious.

He thought of jamming cocaine into a fire extinguisher. The only problem was, he thought it such a grand idea that he tried to haul seven fire extinguishers through U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

Since watermelon are not known for being particularly flammable, border patrol officers decided to have the drug dog check out these fire extinguishers to see what the deal was.

The deal for the watermelon dude will now most likely be jail time. And he doesn’t even get to keep the watermelon.

Another spot that had lots of potential for drug stuffing is dead bodies. The corpse’s stomach can be hallowed out and made into a particularly clever hiding space where not many people would want to search.

In another tale that may or may not be true, a mother crosses the border cradling her baby in her arms. An agent, however, notes the baby doesn’t look too well and asks to take a closer peek. The mom runs off, accidentally dropping the child, who is found to have been brutally murdered and gutted so his insides could be stuffed with drugs.

While this tale may seem far-fetched, similar circumstances have been used to smuggle drugs inside the living.

Balloons, small baggies or condoms are stuffed with drugs and swallowed or crammed in bodily orifices.

Several problems have popped up from using drug balloons. Some start clogging intestines or other places and need to be surgically removed.

Still others begin to leak and the person ends up flipping out or dying from a massive drug overdose.

We never said this career was without its dangers. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it.

In addition to dead babies and a fatal drug overdose, an even greater danger lurks in the land of smugglers.

The drug-sniffing dog. These canines are trained to detect marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and anything else that makes you high, stoned, spaced-out or is illegal to carry across the border.

Even a juicy T-bone won’t deter these pooches from their mission. Your only hope is not to get them called over in your general direction.

So be frugal with those fire extinguishers.

And be careful. This is not a job for sissies, although it may be a job for idiots. But with all the busts, murders and deaths, at least you know it’s a field where there will always be new openings.

Ryn Gargulinski is an artist, poet and TucsonCitizen.com Ryngmaster who never tried to smuggle drugs but once smuggled her pet rat on an airplane. Listen to a preview of her column at 8:10 a.m. Thursdays on KLPX 96.1 FM. Listen to her webcast at 4 p.m. Fridays at www.Party934.com. Her column appears every Friday on Rynski’s Blogski. E-mail rynski@tucsoncitrizen.com