Drugs In Art

The UK Border Agency has revealed some of the latest ploys used by drug traffickers to smuggle their wares into Britain. From the point of view of London Art News, the most interesting ploy was to hide cannabis worth almost £3,000 in a wooden-framed painting depicting footballer Emmanuel Adebayor, who hails from Togo, where the painting was dispatched. It was seized at a postal sorting office in Coventry. No image of the painting has been released, so I've illustrated this post with a portrait of Emmanuel Adebayor by Greek firm Tsevis Visual Design, one of a series of portraits of African footballers created in a computerised mosaic using traditional African patterns. The palette of each portrait is suggested by the flag of the footballer's country of origin, here Togo.