The black market in stolen homing pigeons

 Below are some excerpts from a long interesting story in the Washington Post, about how a boom in pigeon racing in China led to a rash of pigeon thefts in Belgium, and how problems in identifying recovered pigeons can (probably) be expeditiously addressed.

the Pigeon Heist.  How million-dollar pigeons became the target of organized crime.  By Kevin Sieff

"Beginning in around 2019, wealthy Chinese industrialists started spending millions on Belgian pigeons. That year, a pigeon named Armando sold for $1.4 million at an auction outside Brussels. In 2020, another bird named New Kim sold for $1.9 million. Pigeon races in major Chinese cities became opulent symbols of China’s economic boom, with purses over $100 million — exceeding most of the world’s major sports.

...

" a rash of pigeon thefts ... swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in 2024 and 2025. Dozens of pigeon lofts were raided; hundreds of pigeons were taken. “A crisis,” said the Belgian pigeon fanciers’ association in an alert to its members. 

...

"By 2023, China’s Ministry of Public Security began prosecuting cases of illegal gambling on pigeons. Last September, Ding Tao, the director of the Tengzhou Pigeon Association in a city about 350 miles south of Beijing, admonished his fellow pigeon enthusiasts in a speech, published by the city’s sports bureau, for engaging in “illegal profit-making activities.” 

...

"The thefts across Belgium were often focused on a particular commodity, police said. One gang exclusively took racing bicycles. Another targeted construction cranes. One stole dozens of expensive trumpets.

"The investigators knew how Chinese demand had led to the skyrocketing value of pigeons. It seemed possible that European organized crime groups could target the birds with an intention to resell them on the black market in Asia, allowing them to skirt the Chinese government’s scrutiny.

,,,

"The rescued pigeons were transported in cages to a loft run by the Belgian pigeon association outside Brussels. Their identification rings had been cut off. The police planned DNA tests to confirm which birds were registered with which owners. Victims of the thefts were invited to see if they could identify their birds.

 ...

 "Many of the recovered birds have still not been matched to their owners, most likely because they were taken in thefts not recorded by the Belgian police.

"It is increasingly likely, investigators say, that there will be only one way to reunite the birds to their owners: They will open the cages and hope that the birds still remember how to fly home."

Prohibition, Moonshine, and the origins of stock car racing (NASCAR)

Prohibition (and before and after prohibition, high taxes) gave rise to black markets in alcohol. Some of the participants in those markets became folk heroes and later sports heroes, as smugglers became race car drivers, driving "stock" cars rather than cars that drew attention to themselves, eventually giving rise to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

Here's on old article from Smithsonian Magazine that gets right to the point:

How Moonshine Bootlegging Gave Rise to NASCAR. Rotgut and firewater are the founding fathers of our nation’s racing pastime.  by Jennifer Billock

"Even before Prohibition, erstwhile distillers were gathering in secret locations throughout rural areas in the south, brewing up homemade spirits to sell under the radar and away from alcohol taxes and bans. The drinks were made under the light of the moon, in hopes that no one would detect smoke rising from the stills and ultimately bust the operation—a practice that earned the booze its name “moonshine.”

"Moonshining dates back to the 1700s, when officials imposed taxes on liquor sales. Farmers and immigrants throughout the south took to making their own batches to sell for extra money, tax free, to counteract the effects of extreme poverty in the region. And with the introduction of Prohibition, production skyrocketed, creating a thriving black market business for secretly distilled hooch.

"Each hidden distillery needed to use runners—drivers in understated or otherwise ordinary-looking cars who could smuggle moonshine from the stills to thirsty customers across the region. On the outside, the cars looked “stock,” normal enough to avoid attention. But inside, both the mechanics of the cars and the drivers behind the wheel were far from ordinary. The vehicles were outfitted with heavy-duty shocks and springs, safeguarding the jars containing the hooch from breaking on bumpy mountain roads. The seats in the back were usually removed so more booze could fit. And high-powered engines gave the cars extra speed to outrun any cops and tax agents along the route. 

...

"From the 1930s on, once Prohibition had ended, demand for bootlegged alcohol waned and the runners found themselves with souped-up cars yet out of work—though they continued to take part in organized races. On December 14, 1947, one of these runners, Big Bill France, held a meeting with other drivers, car owners and mechanics to finally put in place some standardized rules for the races—thus NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, was born. The first official race was held two months later.

..."Arcadia Publishing released North Carolina Moonshine, a book about the Tar Heel State’s role in firewater history, covering everything from the NASCAR connection to local moonshining celebrities. In the book, the authors mention a secret garage hidden in the woods by the North Carolina-Virginia state line, which had opened in the 1930s and specialized in moonshine cars.

“This garage was operated for over 35 years by a shrewd, large and [purportedly] wily mechanic named Jelly Belly, who provided moonshine runners near and far with powerful cars that were almost untouchable,” authors Frank Stephenson Jr. and Barbara Nichols Mulder write."

*****

Moonshine whisky didn't completely disappear after the end of Prohibition, there are likely still some stills in the backcountry, to avoid taxes.  But while it's a tiny part of the whisky economy today, there are still auto sports heroes who got their start running the back roads with moonshine.  President Ronald Reagan pardoned one of them in 1985 for a 1956 conviction and prison sentence (followed by a storied racing career). The State of North Carolina commemorates the event here:

Junior Johnson Pardoned by Ronald Reagan

"On December 26, 1985, Robert Glen “Junior” Johnson received a  full and unconditional pardon from President Ronald Reagan for his 1956 conviction in federal court for moonshining.  Junior was caught firing up his father’s still and he became entangled in a barbed wire fence while trying to escape.  The conviction put Junior on a forced eleven-month, three-day hiatus in a federal penitentiary from his other career as a rising NASCAR star.

"Johnson, like many early NASCAR drivers, got his first high-speed driving experience in a souped-up automobile loaded with illegal white liquor.  He was a natural as a driver and has always made it a point of pride that the revenuers never caught him on the highway.  He parlayed his experience on the backroads of North Carolina into one of the most successful careers in NASCAR history.

********

Whisky running is memorialized in the NASCAR Hall of Fame:

DIGGING INTO NASCAR'S ROOTS, MOONSHINE RUNNERS & JUNIOR JOHNSON

HT: Kurt Sweat

Futbola eta Ekonomia by Ignacio Palacios-Huerta in the NY Times

Would fútbol by any other name be as interesting?* It is to the economist Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, who has a column in the NY Times motivated by the World Cup and by his recent book "Beautiful Game Theory".

The Beautiful Data Set: The World Cup Can Help Test Economic Theories


*Soccer is  futbola in Euskara, and the Times identifies Ignacio as follows
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, a professor of management at the London School of Economics, is the head of talent identification at Athletic Club Bilbao, a professional soccer club in Spain, and the author of “Beautiful Game Theory: How Soccer Can Help Economics.”

International football (soccer) career paths--the case of Didier Drogba

Simon Kuper in the FT reports on the football career so far of Didier Drogba, which began when he was 5 years old: Didier Drogba is a case study in mobility

" Five-year-old Didier Drogba was moving to France to live with an uncle, a professional footballer.
...
"Last Saturday Drogba, now aged 34, was a match-winner as Chelsea won its first ever Champions League. The Ivorian scored Chelsea’s equalising goal, then netted the decisive penalty. “Drogba’s final”, as it will surely be remembered, proved his last match of eight seasons with Chelsea. He says he is leaving London, and Shanghai Shenhua hopes to sign him. Since that flight from Abidjan, Drogba’s career has become a case study in how a modern professional (footballer or otherwise) should manage mobility.