LORENZO THE LOOKOUT

It worked for awhile, but now Lorenzo, an important member of a Columbian drug cartel, has been captured and caged for life.
　
HE SQUAWKED! LORENZO THE LOOKOUT PARROT BECOMES A JAILBIRD AFTER HE’S ARRESTED FOR WARNING DRUG CARTEL THAT POLICE WERE ON THE WAY
By David Gardner
　
Mail Online
September 23, 2010
　
Lorenzo the parrot is facing life behind bars in Colombia after being caught squawking on the police for a drug cartel.
　
Every time a police officer came close to the traffickers’ headquarters, the bird was trained to scream in Spanish: ‘Run, run, the cat is going to get you!’
　
Police trying to shut down gangs behind the lucrative drug route to the U.S. couldn’t work out at first how they launched raids only to find that the birds had flown the coop.

But detectives finally got wise to the parrot. They sneaked past the loud-beaked lookout to find a hidden stash of weapons and marijuana at a safe house in Barranquilla.
　
Police also found two more specially-trained parrots.
　
‘We found a very interesting situation when we confiscated some exotic birds,’ said one Columbian police officer.
　
'Among them we have a parrot that alerted the people by saying run, run so they would run away before we could arrive.’
　
Animal officials said police had handed over as many as 1,000 parrots, many from the same coastal region, that had been taught to act as lookouts.
　
Baranquilla is Columbia's fourth largest city after the capital Bogota, Medellin and Cali as well as the most populated city on the country's Atlantic coast.