Bogotá, September 8 (teleSUR-RHC)-- A novel method by drug traffickers to smuggle cocaine failed when a joint mission between Colombian and Mexican police led to the seizure of two tons of cocaine, camouflaged in a shipments of powder and ink for printers and photocopiers.

Colombian authorities confiscated 1,070 kilos of cocaine that had been covered with black dust and packaged like ink in Bogota’s El Dorado airport cargo terminal, Colombian police chief Rodolfo Palomino said. 

A sniffer dog named Mona uncovered the scam by detecting the scent of the illicit shipment.  After the discovery, Colombian authorities, aware that a similar shipment had been in Mexico hours before, alerted their Mexican counterparts, which led to police at Mexico City’s international airport discovering another ton of cocaine in an airplane.

Neither police forces have detained suspects in connection to the haul, although they both have “evidence of the owners of the two consignments,” Colombian authorities said, hinting it was linked to the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the world’s most powerful and most wanted drug trafficker, who recently escaped a maximum security jail just north of the Mexican capital. 

Colombia is still one of the world’s main producers of cocaine, with some 442 tons made each year, in spite of government efforts to combat drug trafficking.

This year, Colombian police have seized 115 tons of cocaine.