Police in Peru disguised themselves as World Cup mascots to ambush a wanted drug dealer in Lima, exploiting his obsession with football to catch him completely off guard before storming his apartment and seizing a gun, a knife and a stash of drugs.
Officers from the force’s Green Squad dressed as Maple the Moose and Clutch the Bald Eagle — the official mascots of World Cup co-hosts Canada and the United States — after intelligence revealed the suspect was, in the words of a police spokesperson, “a die-hard football fan, living and breathing the World Cup fever.” The spokesperson said: “So, we proceeded to disguise my Green Squad personnel as World Cup mascots, in order to approach him without arousing suspicion and make the arrest.”
Footage of the operation shows the bobble-headed officers approaching the suspect’s address without raising any alarm, before pounding down the door, throwing off their mascot heads and bounding up the stairs after him. Inside the apartment, officers discovered a firearm, a knife and a bin bag containing a stash of drugs. The suspect was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.
The disguise proved effective despite the fact that Peru did not qualify for the tournament, finishing ninth out of ten teams in their World Cup qualifying group for the Americas.
The operation continues a long tradition of elaborate disguises used by Peruvian police during raids. In one previous Halloween operation, officers dressed as Wolverine and Deadpool used a sledgehammer to break into a building in Lima during a drugs bust. Elsewhere in South America, police in São Paulo previously disguised themselves as Power Rangers and comic book characters including Batman and Robin to blend in with revellers at a carnival, before swarming and arresting a phone snatcher near Ibirapuera Park.
