10/26/2007

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)

27 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:12 pm

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

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

    But how does it sound?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:26 pm

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

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is that a factory upgrade, like better pickups?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:32 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...

    ReplyDelete
  6. 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.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous12:53 am

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

    ReplyDelete
  8. No, anonymous, that's news to me.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 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.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:13 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.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "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.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous2:04 pm

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

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous2:51 pm

    Albeit its illegal but yet unique.

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

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous7:57 pm

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

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

    -phil (itsphil.blogspot.com)

    ReplyDelete
  16. 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

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

    ReplyDelete
  18. Base guitars eh! ( see what I did there)

    lol

    I wonder if they sell those things in Turnkey?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous12:24 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.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous7:44 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.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous7:29 am

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

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous7:31 am

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

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous9:32 am

    Good message, it's digged and bookmarked, Thankx

    ReplyDelete
  24. cocaine in a guitar its hilarious :-)

    coolnewsblog.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous6:53 am

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

    ReplyDelete
  26. 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!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.