High life: Alleged drug dealer hides from cop in plain sight in surreal photo

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Marijuana’s legalization isn’t going as planned.

Illegal pot was supposed to go away. It hasn’t.  

An incredible image distributed by British prosecutors captures a moment of embarrassment as a police officer fails to catch a criminal less than a foot away from him.

Etmond Lika, 32, was wanted by police in connection to the production of cannabis, a controlled Class B drug in the United Kingdom. 

But police had a tricky time catching him, with the photo showing an officer searching outside a skylight in Liverpool while Lika lay on the roof just above the officer’s head. 

Local police did eventually capture him, and he was prosecuted for his crimes. The court sentenced Lika for two years and four months, the Crown Prosecution Service told Fox News Digital. 

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British police have a habit of allowing their blunders to end up as headlines, such as the 2017 case in which police in Cumbria found a suspicious vehicle outside their department and had the bomb squad blow it up.

Merseyside police failed to notice suspect Etmond Lika, 32, merely a foot away on the rooftops during a search.  (Crown Prosecution Service)

The officers soon learned that the car belonged to a man who had fallen ill and gone to hospital, and police had parked his car outside their offices for safekeeping – but had forgotten to tell the rest of the squad, the BBC reported. 

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Another explosive incident for the police occurred when a police squad donated knives collected in a nationwide cleanup to an artist to create a “knife angel” sculpture, but accidentally included two bags of explosives in the donation.

Close-up of Etmond Lika hiding above a police officer as Merseyside police search for him. (Crown Prosecution Service )

The force responsible for the blunder never identified itself. 

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Police force errors extended even to investigations and procedures, such as when Scottish police executed the wrong warrant, seeking out a drug dealer on suspicion of having an offensive weapon when they meant to arrest him on suspicion of intent to supply heroin and “street valium.” 

The suspect went free on the drug charges, though he did face trial for breaching conditions of bail, the Greenock Telegraph reported. 

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And Cambridgeshire police once spent considerable time and effort searching for a 57-year-old Lithuanian man by the name of Vytautas Jokubauskas, only to realize they had used the photo for a 50-year-old Vytautas Jokubauskus who had never set foot in the U.K. 

Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.