The Colombian government is to sue Walmart for selling a Christmas jumper seemingly showing Father Christmas with lines of cocaine described in the ad as ‘grade A, Colombian snow’ in front of him.
The sweater was sold by an external seller on Walmart’s Canadian website shows Father Christmas sitting in front of three white lines that appear to be cocaine with a text saying ‘let it snow’.
The original advert for the jumper said:
We all know how snow works. It’s white, powdery and the best snow comes straight from South America. That’s bad news for jolly old St. Nick, who lives far away in the North Pole. That’s why Santa really likes to savor the moment when he gets his hands on some quality, grade A, Colombian snow.
He packs it in perfect lines on his coffee table and then takes a big whiff to smell the high quality aroma of the snow. It’s exactly what he needs to get inspired for Christmas Eve.
The company removed the advertisement from its website and apologised, saying the sweaters did not represent the values of Walmart and had been removed from its website, a spokesman told Global News.
However, although Walmart has removed the sweater, other online vendors have started selling it.
While some social media users found the unique festive jumper funny, the National Judicial Defence Agency of the State of Colombia didn’t find it quite as entertaining.
Camilo Gomez, director of the National Judicial Defence Agency of the State of Colombia, claimed the advertisement ‘is an offence to the country generating damages to the legal products of Colombia and the reputation of the country’, local media reports.
Gomez said Colombia will take action to obtain compensation and damages, with the money being handed to the victims of drug trafficking. If they do not receive the compensation they will take the case to the court.
Gomez has confirmed Colombia ‘cannot stay quiet’ after the sale of the item. The amount of compensation will depend on the number of people who saw the advert on Walmart’s website, according to reports.
Local media reported Colombia is the biggest producer of cocaine in the world, and the government has been fighting against drug traffickers in the country for decades.
Maybe Walmart will pay a bit more attention to which Christmas jumpers are on its site next year…
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Niamh Shackleton is a pint sized person and journalist at UNILAD. After studying Multimedia Journalism at the University of Salford, she did a year at Caters News Agency as a features writer in Birmingham before deciding that Manchester is (arguably) one of the best places in the world, and therefore moved back up north. She’s also UNILAD’s unofficial crazy animal lady.