BRAZIL: Cat caught smuggling jail break tools to lags

A cat strapped with contraband to help prisoners escape from a jail has been captured by authorities in Brazil.The feline felon was held by officers after it tried to deliver mobile phones and tunnel digging tools to inmates at the prison in north east of the country.The cat, trained to repeatedly deliver items, was discovered with the evidence strapped to its stomach.

"An agent saw the cat and went to look at it closely because something about it seemed wrong," Marcelo Avelino, the head of the prison guards' union, said.

The officer found a bag tied to the animal's body filled with saw blades and parts for concrete drilling and digging tunnels.It also had a mobile phone with battery and charger, Mr Avelino said.

Officials confirmed that the cat had often been seen coming in and out of the Alagoas jail before the arrest.

Prison officer Luiz de Oliveira Souza said that prisoners had raised the cat and that their relatives would often take it home after visiting hours.

"We were very surprised by this new tactic of prisoners," who trained the animal so that it returned to the prison and even managed to carry materials, the agent said.

Alagoas state prisons spokeswoman Cinthya Moreno said that the cat was caught on New Year's Eve, at the prison in the city of Arapiraca.

According to source, all of the prison's 263 inmates are suspects in the smuggling attempt.However a jail representative added: "It will be hard to discover who is responsible since the cat does not speak."