Police inspectors in Pilar, Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, were recently questioned about the disappearance of 540 kg of marijuana from the evidence room, and the best explanation they could come up with was that addicted rats ate it all.

It all started in April 2017, when Commissioner Emilio Portero relieved his partner Javier Specia, as head of the police department in Pilar, a town located 60 km from the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. Protocol dictates that in the case of such a transfer of command, a sort of inventory of everything left in the hands of his successor by the officer who is transferred to another unit be signed. Although the inventory was allegedly conducted, it was never signed by Specia, which made Portero suspicious. He notified the Division of Internal Affairs of the Police, which in turn tasked the National Gendarmerie with conducting an official inventory.

Photo: Matt Baume/Flickr

After checking everything in the evidence room, the National Gendarmerie reported that of the 6,000 kg of marijuana mentioned in Specia’s paper of transfer, 540 kg were unaccounted for. Judge Adrián González Charvay opened an investigation and cited Commissioner Javier Specia and three of his subordinates to testify about the missing drugs. Interestingly, they all offered the same alibi – that the 540 kg of marijuana had all been consumed by rats.

Internal Affairs conducted another investigation to check the truthfulness of their claims, but didn’t find any evidence that might suggest that the rats were indeed responsible for the disappearance of such a large quantity of drugs.

“The drugs were in a state of absolute dryness, since they were in storage for about two years, which forced us to investigate if a rodent invasion could have eaten so much marijuana, but the experts consulted concluded that that was very unlikely because if it had happened, the mice would have died, and no animal carcasses were detected in the room,” investigators said in a statement.

The lack of evidence regarding a rat infestation and Commissioner Specia’s conveniently missing signed inventory statement for last year convinced the judge to go ahead with the case. So far, no disciplinary action was taken against them, but Specia and his subordinates are due in federal court next month.