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Earlier this week, Evelio Padilla, a 28-year-old Honduran immigrant, pleaded guilty in federal court to attempting to smuggle drugs into the country using scuba-diving gear and an underwater, cross-border tunnel.
"Drug smugglers will try anything to move their product, even scuba diving in an underwater tunnel," US Attorney Laura Duffy said in a statement.
Below are some of the most creative smuggling attempts.
A "narco pigeon" was caught smuggling drugs into a Costa Rican prison.
Ministerio de Justicia y Paz de la República de Costa Rica
This woman was apprehended smuggling 51 tropical fish when customs officers heard "flipping" noises coming from her waist.
A woman on a flight from Singapore to Melbourne shows the 51 live tropical fish hidden in a specially designed apron under her skirt in this handout photograph from the Australian Customs Service on June 3, 2005.
REUTERS/Handout/Australian Customs Service
A drone dropped heroin, marijuana, and tobacco into an Ohio prison yard.
Airplane flies over a drone during the Polar Bear Plunge on Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York
Thomson Reuters
Source
German customs agents foiled a money laundering operation after finding currency stuffed inside croissants.
Money concealed in pastries that the German customs agency Zoll seized during an anti-money laundering operation, is displayed before the agency's annual statistics news conference at the finance ministry in Berlin March 16, 2012.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Customs agents became suspicious when they found a Long Beach man attempting to board a plane headed to Japan with an unusual amount of chocolate candy. All 45 candy bars were filled with methamphetamine.
One of 45 methamphetamine filled candy bars attempted to be smuggled out of the United States by Long Beach resident Rogelio Maurico Harris,is pictured in this photograph on July 30, 2012.
REUTERS/Courtesy U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
US Transportation Security Administration agents at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island, found a gun hidden inside a Mickey Mouse plush doll.
A handout photo provided by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shows parts of a pistol which were found hidden in a stuffed animal at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island on May 8, 2012.
REUTERS/TSA/Handout
This Mr. Potato Head doll, intercepted in the mail en route to Australia, contained 293 grams of ecstasy.
A Mr Potatohead toy containing 293 grams of ecstasy seized by Australian Customs at a mail center in Sydney is seen in this undated handout photograph made available October 4, 2007.
REUTERS/Australian Customs/Handout
In this photo, a German customs officer holds a confiscated soccer ball filled with cigarettes.
A German customs officer holds a confiscated soccer ball used as a hiding spot to smuggle cigarettes to Germany at the Finance ministry in Berlin March 11, 2011.
Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch
These 150 bottles of "gay lube oil" were filled with illegal liquid steroids.
Some of the 150 bottles containing illegal liquid steroids hidden inside sexual lubricant packaging seized by the Australian Customs is seen in this handout obtained July 30, 2008.
REUTERS/Australian Customs/Handout
US Customs and Border Protection officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport found $65,200 in counterfeit bills concealed in flimsy floral place mats.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at John F. Kennedy’s International express cargo facility seized $65,200 dollars in counterfeit 100 dollar bills concealed in place mats and a shoe bag from Ecuador.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
US Customs discovered 5.3 pounds of cocaine worth $160,000 inside the battery of the smuggler's car.
The smugglers behind this attempt filled the hood of their car as well as various parts of the vehicle with marijuana.
US Customs officers discovered marijuana underneath the hood of a smuggling vehicle, as well as throughout the rest of the vehicle.
US Customs and Border Protection
Nearly half a million in unreported cash was hidden in a box of diapers and trash bags and submerged in a 5-gallon bucket of paint.
US Customs and Border Protection officers at the Calexico downtown port discovered more than $457,000 in unreported U.S. currency in a vehicle bound for Mexico.
US Customs and Border Protection
This man attempted to cross the US border from Mexico disguised as a leather car seat.
