Customs officials catch some bizarre booty

9:23 PM, Jul. 7, 2012
Written by
SAMANTHA RAPHELSON | Courier-Post Staff

PHILADELPHIA — Many international travelers are taking cues from drug smugglers.

Except narcotics aren’t their contraband of choice.

When a traveler flew in from Europe recently, Customs inspectors seized a souvenir snack from Spain — a cured 12-pound swine leg, complete with hoof. And if a massive ham bone seems outlandish, that’s nothing compared to other bizarre items seized from arriving passengers at Philadelphia International Airport.

“You can spend a week in an airport and see something different every day,” said Steve Sapp, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Sapp notes inspectors once opened a suitcase to find supplies for voodoo rituals — including a bedsheet coated in animal blood, birds’ feet, dead rodents and animal bone fragments. A traveler from Israel arrived with a dead bird intended as a gift for his sister. And a third flier carried a plant that had been wrapped in foil, then decorated.

“Plants with soil are prohibited because the soil may contain dangerous micro-organisms and the plant may have a plant disease,” said Sapp. “We’ve seen creative concealment methods for secreting plants, but disguising it as an aluminum foil plant, compete with plastic leaves and flower petals, has to be one of the more ridiculous and least creative attempts yet.”

Inspectors at the Philadelphia airport routinely seize African bush meat, European pork products, and fruits that travelers picked up at overseas hotels or airports, said Sapp.

The items — including monkey arms meant to be eaten — are confiscated to avoid bringing agricultural diseases into the country.

“On a typical day, CBP agriculture specialists seize about 4,300 prohibited plant, meat and animal byproducts at our nation’s ports of entry across the country,” Sapp said. “We see more agriculture violations than narcotics.”

Sometimes, travelers are unaware of offending items.

The CBP on Friday said its agriculture specialists, in a first for the Philadelphia airport, had found a red palm mite on hats and a bowl made from palm fronds that a traveler brought from Jamaica last month. The tiny bug, known to feed on many palm species, is a “serious pest risk” for subtropical areas of the United States, the CBP said.

In the case of the ham bone, the Maryland-bound traveler apparently did not know he needed government certifications to bring the leg into the country. Sapp noted the traveler had declared the swine leg, which was visible as soon as officers opened his bag.

“When you bring something like that into the country, there’s really no other intent than to eat it,” said Sapp.

The restrictions on importing meat and meat products frequently change as a result of disease outbreaks in different parts of the world, he said. If a contaminated product reached American livestock, the fallout could cost billions of dollars.

Most agriculture products are placed in trash bags that are burned every 72 hours. Fruit, wood and some plants are taken to a grinding room where they are inspected for insects.

But determined travelers often try to beat the system, said Angela Allen, a supervisory agriculture specialist at the Philadelphia airport.

“I’ve had people who come over with meat and say, ‘I want to turn this in,’ ” she observed. “We take their bag and run it through the X-ray machine, and their bags are loaded with more meat,” she observed.

Others pretend they can’t speak English — until a fine is issued, and then they become fluent, said Allen.

“We expect passengers to be completely honest with us from the moment they get off the airplane,” Sapp said. If they aren’t forthcoming, the CBP can assess a civil penalty at $300 and up to $1,000 for repeat offenders.

Passengers are not fined if they declare items on their Customs forms, said Allen.

Some tourists don’t fare well at smuggling.

One traveler, likely returning from a drug-enhanced vacation in the Netherlands, returned with hash-filled lollipops. In that case, inspectors might have been tipped off by the container — a large package that read “Hash Pops.”

In contrast, drug smugglers take more sophisticated measures to avoid detection.

“It’s become an art form,” said Dale Markowitz, a supervisory CBP officer, who noted these suspects often swallow drugs after coating them in wax. Rookie “swallowers” usually carry 25 to 50 pellets, he said, but one woman from Nigeria arrived in Washington, D.C., with 190 pellets in her body — a record for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Officers usually detect swallowers by their behavior and through interviews. The person often has taken something to slow the digestive process, which makes them sluggish, Markowitz said.

Travelers should visit the CBP’s website for a full list of prohibited items.

“It could save them time during their return inspection, and possibly even save them money they might have spent on prohibited products,” Sapp said.

ON THE WEB
• To learn what you can and cannot bring to the United States, visit CBP Travel Spotlight

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