Another cool crime

I'm not turning criminal here but I do like a clever idea that is well thought out and implemented. Just like the almost bank job from yesterday, here is a clever smuggling job that worked for a while:

Smugglers built vodka pipeline
The accused built a 2-kilometre pipeline through a reservoir that marks the Russian-Estonian border, and managed to pump 6,200 litres of spirits across before getting caught.

"It might sound weird and unbelievable but it's a very real criminal case," Mari Luuk, a spokesman for Estonian prosecutors, told AFP.

The smugglers � 11 Russians and Estonians � face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Vodka is vastly cheaper in Russia than in its ex-Soviet neighbour Estonia, which joined the EU in May 2004. Top of the line vodka can run to hundreds of pounds in Russia, but the man on the street often satisfies himself with bottles costing as little as �2.

The men were caught after Estonian tax officials found 1,159 litres of untaxed alcohol hidden in a truck in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

The find led them to the pipeline, submerged in a reservoir near the Estonian border town of Narva, which the Russian-led smuggling ring used between August and November 2004.

Prosecutors said the untraditional � and illegal � route allowed the men to avoid paying �57,000 in taxes.

The idea of running two kilometers of pipe under the lake is genius. You initially fill it with water, start running a pig and the stuff after the pig is your vodka. Minimal loss and the only avenue for detection is human. The mokes in the truck probably squealed to get a lighter sentence.