Colombia will send 70 hippos of druglord Pablo Escobar to India and Mexico as country try to control their population.

The plan is to send 60 hippos to the Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat, India, and another 10 hippos will go to zoos and sanctuaries in Mexico such as the Ostok, located in Sinaloa.

Escobar brought a small number of the African beasts to Colombia in the late 1980s. But after his death in 1993 the animals were left to roam freely in a hot, marshy area of Antioquia department, where environmental authorities have been helpless to curb their numbers which now stand at 150 animals.

Authorities said they plan to capture and move nearly half of the hippopotamuses in the coming months.

“The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million,” Ernesto Zazueta, owner of the Ostok Sanctuary, told reporters.

He and governor Anibel Gaviria, of the Colombian region that is home to the hippos, say they plan to lure the animals with bait into pens where they will remain confined before being put in special crates for the transfer.

Colombia had tried a sterilization program to control the population, but it failed.

The environment ministry declared the hippos an invasive species last year, which opened the door to an eventual cull.

But the hippo transfer plan is seen as a life-saving measure.