LONDON: Drug smugglers tried to transport a kilo of cannabis within a wooden framed painting of Manchester City footballer Emmanuel Adebayor last year, the UK Border Agency said on Thursday.

The painting was sent from Togo destined for an address in Tottenham, north London, and was discovered at a postal hub in Coventry.

It was one of the more unusual places Border Agency officers found drugs in 2010.Other finds included:

-- 1.1 kilos of cocaine, with an estimated street value of 270,000 pounds, were found concealed in packets of peanuts and cashew nuts in freight at Gatwick Airport in March.

-- 33 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of 6.7 million pounds were hidden in metal drums containing powdered nuts in May while in transit at Heathrow airport.

-- In August, an estimated 10 kilos of cocaine were found hidden in yams on board a freight flight at Kent International Airport which originated in Ghana. The yams had been cut open to conceal the drugs and glued back together.

-- Cocaine worth up to 40,000 pounds was found hidden in a birthday card destined for an address in Belfast.

The agency said it had released the list to show the lengths smugglers will go to transport drugs.

“Criminals are prepared to invest large sums of money to come up with ever better concealment methods because they know the potential profits from the awful trade in harmful drugs are considerable,” said the head of the Border Force Brodie Clark in a statement.

“However, the smugglers are no match for the skill of our officers and the state-of-the-art technology at their disposal,” he added.