An inmate in a Costa Rican prison has allegedly enlisted a pigeon to do his dirty work, training the bird to traffic drugs into the jail.

The pigeon flew the coop on Tuesday, arriving in the central concourse of La Reforma medium security prison, about 15km from the Costa Rican capital San Jose, with a package attached to its chest, El Pais reported.

The pint-sized package allegedly contained 14g of cocaine and about the same amount of marijuana, wrapped in plastic in a zipped case.

The drugs were valued at about $280, and allegedly destined for an inmate who trained the pigeon as a courier.

Penitentiary Police director Paul Bertozzi told Spanish news agency Efe it showed the need to be vigilant if drug couriering in the country’s penitentiaries.

“Drug traffickers are using unimaginable ways to achieve their macabre atrocities,” he said.

“This [use of a pigeon] is nothing new. In the past [the traffickers] have used cats and dogs to pass drugs to prisoners. Now it seems they are using pigeons to carry in their wares from the outside.”

The Costa Rican Ministry for Justice released an image of the offending “narcopaloma”, or drug pigeon, on August 11.

It is the first time this method has been used to traffic drugs into a prison in Costa Rica, but the practice has previously been reported in Argentina and Colombia.

The package was immediately confiscated, with the bird later taken to an animal refuge.