Here are some the craziest smuggling attempts ever!
9 - Nope, not a tiger When you’re trying to smuggle something
through customs, you’d try something a little better than just trying to put it in your
carry-on bag and take it through security right?
Well, one lady certainly didn’t think things through!
An actual live tiger cub was found hidden among stuffed-tiger toys in a carry on bag
at one of Bangkok's airports back in 2010.
How they making stuffed tiger cubs that realistic now?!
Anyways, the Thai lady, identified as Piyawan Palasarnwas, was trying to hop on a flight
to Iran when she had trouble getting her bag through security.
Airport staff had suspected something was up when they scanned the bag and X-ray images
showed an item resembling a real cat!
Interestingly enough, of course she denied the luggage belonged to her.
She claimed that another passenger had asked her to carry it for them.
You know, the exact thing every single airport warns about.
The cub theoretically could have fetched a few thousand dollars in Iran, where it’s
popular to have exotic pets.
However, they didn’t know what the woman actually was trying to do with the tiger,
but hey come on, she had no clue it was in there!
Okay, I hope you guys didn’t fall for that one.
8 - The crocodile smuggler Just when you think snakes on a plane couldn’t
get any worse…...think again!
Back in August 2010, a passenger on a regional airline in Congo attempted to smuggle not
snakes, but a CROCODILE from the capital city of Kinshasa to Bandundu.
Just why?!
The crocodile actually escaped from hiding only minutes before the plane was about to
land at Bandundu airport.
The problem was, a cabin crew member ran towards the cockpit because she saw the crocodile,
causing panic among the passengers on board.
In the ensuing chaos, passengers began running towards the front of the plane, toppling it
off balance.
The pilots tried their best to get it under control, but the plane ended up crashing into
a house.
A silver lining is that the people living in the house weren’t in it at that time.
Apparently, the crocodile was carried in a duffle bag, as part of carry-on baggage.
As you’d expect, the crocodile smuggler wanted to sell the animal in Congo.
We have no problem with dudes wanting to make some money selling things, but come on, use
a little common sense.
Amazingly enough, the crocodile actually survived the crash!
We can all agree that if we want to sell a crocodile, let’s not fly with the crocodile
we’re trying to sell right?
7 - Coloring Pills Pain medicines work great.
But the problem is, sometimes they work TOO well, and many people keep using it long after
they’re healed.
And that’s why, there’s a market for pain medicines when people’s prescriptions run
out!
Back in 2011, New Jersey cops busted inmates who used children's coloring books to smuggle
in pain medicine undetected!
Seriously, prison brings out people’s ingenuity right?!
People in prison think of the most ridiculous schemes!
Officers at the Cape May County Correctional Center in New Jersey discovered that pages
of coloring books sent through inmate mail were smeared with paint containing Suboxone,
a prescription medicine.
The illegal medicine had been dissolved into a paste and then painted onto pictures that
depicted Disney characters such as Snow White and Cinderella.
Apparently, the only reason that correctional officers knew to look for this was because
this wasn’t their first rodeo, as other prisoners had already used this tactic.
Officers came to know how the original people did it was because they were tipped off by
of course, an anonymous prisoner!
6 - 6 shy of 100 When someone’s trying to smuggle something
somewhere, typically hiding it in a suitcase would seem like at least an okay idea.
Or maybe even swallowing something and having it come out the other side, although we know
that doesn’t always work.
However, strapping 94 iPhones to your body?
I think most people can easily figure out that that just won’t work!
Chinese customs officials back in 2015 busted a Hong Kong man trying to sneak 94 iPhones
into mainland China, by strapping all the phones to his body!
I mean come on, don’t most people know that stepping through a metal detector is the minimum
these days?!
The man caught attention of customs agents when he walked like someone carrying something
heavy, except he was just carrying two shopping bags.
After finding nothing suspicious in his two plastic shopping bags, officials asked the
man to pass through a metal detector, and of course, the alarm went off.
The man’s record revealed numerous previous run-ins with customs regulations, and he was
detained.
iPhones were super popular in Mainland China back in 2015, and they still are today.
Apple phones are more expensive in mainland China than in Hong Kong because of higher
import taxes.
The price difference has created a big lack market supplied by smugglers.
And that’s why, there are guys who’re willing to smuggle 94 iphones by strapping
them on his body!
5 - Wanna Save 15%?
In 2010, a German Reptile collector Hans Kurt Kubus, 58 at the time, was trying to hop on
a flight from New Zealand.
However, there was just a little problem.
Officials discovered a whole bunch of rare lizards hidden in his underwear!
Not sure who got the worst end of the deal, the guy or the lizards!
He was arrested and had to pay 5,000 New Zealand dollars in fines for plundering New Zealand’s
wild gecko and skink populations.
Customs officials found 44 lizards in this dudes underwear.
Apparently, Hans admitted to being a dealer of endangered animals and pled guilty in court
to charges of trading exploited species and hunting protected wildlife.
So how did this guy manage to have a “menagerie” of lizards?
He had altered his underwear with eight hand-sewn compartments in order to carry the geckos
and skinks around.
One last lizard, the luckiest of them all probably, depending on the way you look at
things, was later found hidden in the man's suitcase.
According to the prosecutor working on the case, each gecko has a street value of approximately
$1,500 in Europe, while the value of the skinks was unknown.
4 - Don’t low on the cartridge Next time you’re about to fire up a nintendo
game, maybe you’ll want to double check what’s inside!
Back in 2017, customs officials in Mexico stumbled across more than 70 live spiders
hidden inside 10 bootleg Nintendo game cartridges.
They were headed to an address close to Baltimore, Maryland.
Ehhh……hey, if Wee-Bey had a thing for fish on The Wire, there has to be some baltimore
residents who’re into exotic spiders right?!
The package containing the spiders was intercepted at Guadalajara International Airport.
When officials took a closer look inside, they found 73 spiders inside plastic tubes
concealed within the game cartridges!
Customs officers carefully opened each one of the cartridges to reveal separate tubes
in each cartridge.
Each of the tubes contained a single exotic spider.
But really though, why nintendo games?
We’re not experts on x-rays or scanners here, but it just seems like there are better
options to hide live exotic spiders in than old plastic nintendo cartridges!
3 - Just me myself and I Smuggling animals is one of the most common
cases of smuggling that’s caught by customs officers.
A great example is a Norwegian man who was caught trying to bring a whoooole bunch of
animals into Norway.
He was stopped when he was getting off a ferry from Denmark.
When the officers performed a routine check and found a tarantula in his bag, they went,
“heyyyy wait a minute, let’s do a body check!”
And guess what they found?
They found 14 stockings, each containing a python, taped to this ridiculously crazy dude’s
upper body!
Obviously they were the non-venomous kind, because I can only imagine how many times
he might have been close to being bitten.
However, it doesn’t end there.
Further inspection led custom officers to find 10 cans taped this dude’s legs, cans
that contained Albino Geckos!
The customs officers realized something was wrong when it seemed that the guy’s body
was constantly jiggling……..ugh can you imagine the feeling of 14 pythons moving against
your body?
2 - Weekend at Bernies Remember the movie Weekend at Bernie’s?
Where rich guy Bernie was carried around just so two dudes can keep a weekend party going?
Well, this is pretty much the sequel!
On a flight bound to Berlin, Gitta Jarant and her daughter Anke Anusic tried to fly
Curt Jarant from Liverpool to Germany.
The only problem was….this guy didn’t exactly walk on his own.
In order to evade the costly and lengthy procedure of repatriating the body, the mother daughter
duo decided to fool everyone simply by placing Curt Jarant in a wheelchair with sunglasses
over his eyes!
Their award winning story goes something like quote “we thought he was asleep.”
When they requested help from an airport worker to lift the wheelchair out of the taxi, he
became suspicious and informed security.
The officials at the airport confirmed that Curt Jarant had in fact, passed.
Trying to cover up their tracks, the mother-daughter duo insisted that Curt had been alive when
brought to the airport.
This wasn’t true according to the worker, because he testified saying that while moving
the wheelchair out of the taxi, Curt’s face fell on him and that it was ice-cold!
Obviously, the mother daughter combo were arrested but ultimately, charges were eventually
dropped somehow.
1 - Who actually likes pepsi?
If you had to throw a party in Saudi arabia, but alcohol isn’t sold or allowed in the
country, how would you get alcohol for the party?
Get a ton of those fake shampoo bottles and ship some liquor over from a country that
sells it?
Make your own in the backyard?
The smugglers in this case were obviously hoping to be showered with some newbie luck,
because they attempted to smuggle not one or two cartons, but 48 THOUSAND cans of Heineken
bear under the pretense of shipping Pepsi to Saudi Arabia!
There are several places in the world where alcohol production and consumption is strictly
banned, and one such place is Saudi Arabia.
The smugglers in this case were either complete rookies, or were just asking to be caught.
If they had been actually trying to get away with it, they would have come up with something
better.
The truck carrying the alcohol shipment was labelled “soft drinks”.
It was stopped during routine procedures, and it led the officers into discovering what
was actually underneath the surface of the supposed Pepsis.
We’re sure a few Heineken drinkers in Saudi Arabia were definitely a bit disappointed.
Here’s what’s next!