Why is this electric guitar worth €2,500,000? Because it's made of pure cocaine

La Repubblica have a story (Google translation) and pictures about a 30-something guy who flew from Costa Rica to Fiumicino airport in Rome with a guitar (a black Squier Strat, with the label still on the scratchplate) and 10 thermos flasks in his luggage. The customs official noticed white powder leaking out of the guitar which tested positive for cocaine. Cocaine in solution was also found in the thermos flasks - a total of €2.5m worth. (Yes, there's some weird photoshop action in the first photo, not sure what that's about). Seems music-related smuggling is fairly popular: NY Times has half a pound of heroin in a guitar, and this chap 19kg of coke in three guitar amps 'bought while wandering around the shops in Trinidad', and these jokers wanted to stuff a piano with E and coke and bring it over from Holland. (Thanks, Paolo)

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

I think we now know the reason behind the Chinese democracy delays..

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:12 pm

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie.

But how does it sound?

# posted by

KeithHandy : 4:33 pm

How about producing a guitar like those beer hats, except the plastic tubing terminates with a nose plug... Keith Richards would approve!

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:26 pm

Is that a factory upgrade, like better pickups?

# posted by

Unknown : 8:04 pm

Most of the members of the quite legendary rock band Phoenix escaped Ceausescu's Romania in 1977 by hiding inside their (disembowelled) Marshall amps...

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:32 pm

The photoshopping may simply have been done by the newspaper to save paying for the brand logo on the cup. It's the same as blurring out the Nike swoosh.

# posted by

Unknown : 10:08 pm

Has anyone noticed that this was a Squier and not a real Strat?

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:53 am

No, anonymous, that's news to me.

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 1:52 am

As far as the photoshopping being just to blur the cup logo... though that is definitely true in some cases... I dunno. The whole cup looks badly shopped in. As does that incredibly tiny Squire guitar with strange white edges... and possibly even the blue bag and the (guitar?) bag under the tiny little guitar. I don't think that guitar being cut open is a Squire. Having seen, and owned a black Squire strat, I can say that I've never seen a Squire with the pickup spacing fit to single coil pickups. It is more like a larger space cut out, if not just a big rectangle straight up and down, at least big enough to hold a humbucker. That and if you look at the cocaine guitar picture, the screw holes for a strat pick guard arn't there,and why are there six holes drilled for the strings? Strats don't use that kind of bridge.

# posted by

Only the good die young : 6:51 am

The story seems to be legit, the cup in the first photo is definitely a hoax though. I don´t think the newspaper did that, the logo on the cup belongs to a Costa Rican soccer team, my bet is followers of the rival team put the cup in the pic.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:13 am

"I don't think that guitar being cut open is a Squire...pickup spacing"

Also there's the 'being made out of solid cocaine wrapped in fiberglass' that hints it's not a real Squier.

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 9:30 am

Meh...it's the prototype for the Fender Custom Shop Stevie Nicks Signature model.

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:04 pm

Albeit its illegal but yet unique.

http://www.elitechoice.org/2007/10/28/electric-guitar-for-3598002%e2%80%a6ooops-its-cocaine/

# posted by

Unknown : 2:51 pm

It's probably the pieces of many different guitars chopped up and re-asembled to resemble a strat.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:57 pm

now where was that model guitar in the 80's?

-phil (itsphil.blogspot.com)

# posted by

Phil : 10:10 pm

What about drums full of hashish from India? :)
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2007/10/23/drum/
Google translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lenta.ru%2Fnews%2F2007%2F10%2F23%2Fdrum%2F&langpair=ru%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8

# posted by

Unknown : 9:33 am

bag(s), guitar, and cup are all shopped in on that 1st picture. Perspective and size ratio is all wrong for the whole thing.

# posted by

Zak : 2:13 pm

Base guitars eh! ( see what I did there)

lol

I wonder if they sell those things in Turnkey?

# posted by

london cokehead : 11:04 pm

I once played on a gig in a prison. Out personal bags were completely checked, but out chevy van completely filled with amps, speakers, cable bags, instruments etc were not checked at all. We were flabb'd because we could have brought anything we would have liked into that prison. Amazing. Fortunately, we were honest guys, not planning anything and perhaps they saw that. But a weird feeling.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:24 pm

2.5 mil € of coke won't fit in a guitar body. That total came mostly from the coke dissolved in water he was carrying.
It's about a 500K€ guitar.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:44 pm

HAHHAAH LOL I think this crazzy hawiehiawheiaweh expensive guitar hawhihahahah https://ClasicPop.com

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:29 am

BTW i am so glad for that :D
https://ClasicPop.com

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:31 am

Good message, it's digged and bookmarked, Thankx

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:32 am

cocaine in a guitar its hilarious :-)

coolnewsblog.blogspot.com

# posted by

Webmaster : 9:34 am

I always wondered why some Strats have such a refreshing sound.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:53 am

That was a clever but stupid idea of putting cocaine in a guitar, when it could leak out!!!! People would do anything for drugs these days WoW!

# posted by

jmlee : 3:45 am

örgü modelleri

thanx

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:03 pm