• How many different living creatures have people attempted to smuggle through airport
security in their luggage?
And why are there JUST as many people trying to bring DEAD things on a plane?
Here are 10 of the most bizarre things caught by airport security.
10 – Turtles and Crocodiles • In 2011, Thailand customs found some turtles.
They found FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE TURTLES, to be exact.
• The turtles were seized on a passenger jet coming from Bangladesh, as the person
smuggling them had apparently intended to sell them.
The total value of the turtles came out to about 33 thousand dollars.
• Oh right.
The person was also smuggling sever freshwater crocodiles as well.
• Customs collected all the animals at the airport, but they didn’t catch the smuggler
– he probably bailed on the luggage after it got caught.
• Oddly enough, just a year earlier, another turtle smuggler was busted trying to bring
1,140 turtles into the country.
9 – A Chihuahua • In 2015, TSA officials performing routine
baggage checks found something unusual.
• At LaGuardia Airport in New York City, a black suitcase set off an “unknown contents”
alarm, prompting an officer to inspect the case.
• That officer was greeted by a small chihuahua.
A live one, just sitting there among the clothing.
• This set off a hunt for the dog’s owner, who apparently had no idea.
She said the dog must have climbed into her luggage to sleep while she was packing, and
she closed it without noticing.
• It’s a good thing she didn’t pack too tightly.
8 – Mickey Mouse full of gun parts • Obviously, it’s illegal to take a gun
on a plane.
That’s kind of the whole POINT of security checkpoints.
• Apparently, that’s still the case, even if the gun is disassembled and hidden in a
child’s toy.
In fact, that actually kind of makes it MORE suspicious.
• A man was travelling with his 5-year old son and had hidden parts of a handgun and
ammunition in each of three different toys in his carry-on bag.
• TSA officials said they had no reason to believe there was any danger to the airline
passengers, and that the whole situation appears to have stemmed from a domestic dispute.
• But then that raises the question: What kind of domestic dispute results in THAT?
7 – A baby • A couple attempting to travel from Egypt
from to the United Arab Emirates had a slight problem – their baby did not exactly have
a legal travel visa.
• So they did the only logical thing they could think of.
They went down to the Egyptian immigration office and… yeah, just kidding.
They just threw the 5-month-old kid in a bag.
• Police discovered the baby in a small handbag on its way through an x-ray.
• The thing is, the paperwork for the child was being processed, and the couple needed
only to wait a couple days for it to complete.
• But they decided that was too much, so they sent their baby through a x-ray machine
in a handbag instead, and it resulted in them being prosecuted by local authorities.
6 – Dead body • At Liverpool’s John Lennon airport,
a woman and her daughter tried to actually pull a real-life Weekend at Bernie’s situation
with their deceased relative.
• The mother rolled the dead man up to the check-in counter wearing a hat and sunglasses,
his head slumped to one side.
• When the people at the check-in counter asked about him, they said he was just sleeping,
and he always slept like that.
Obviously, that wasn’t true, and they were caught in that lie immediately.
• They then insisted he was alive when they arrived at the airport, and must have died
while they were there.
• Which would have made sense, except that the body was ice cold, according to the worker
that helped remove the man’s body from the taxi outside.
5 – Loaded spear guns • So, generally speaking, bringing weapons
on a plane is not allowed.
But normally, people think of those as being things like handguns or knives.
• Not too many people try to get away with getting on a plane with a SPEAR GUN.
Because hey, not too many people are boarding commercial flights thinking they’ll need
to fight sharks.
• But a guy tried to board with a spear gun in his carry-on baggage anyway.
And in case you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, he also packed a utility knife
in with his spear gun.
• So it was basically a bad decision all around.
4 – Dead endangered seahorses • A good rule to follow when trying to decide
what to bring on a plane is: Seahorses don’t belong on a plane.
You should definitely, never attempt to bring seahorses on a plane.
• Oh, they’re dead seahorses?
Well, that might be okay.
Wait, the dead seahorses are an ENDANGERED SPECIES?
Nope, DEFINITELY NOT OKAY.
• If you insist on smuggling some dead, endangered seahorses on a plane, you should
at least find a good hiding spot for them.
Hey, sticking them in a bottle of alcohol might work.
• Wait, the bottle of alcohol is oversized and is ALSO BANNED?
• It’s like you WANTED to get caught.
3 – Human skull fragments • Two women returning to Florida from their
trip to Cuba bought some pots at what they called a “religious-type shop.”
• The pots were supposed to “ward off evil spirits.”
The pots were filled with dirt, stones, human teeth, and skull fragments.
• It is, of course, illegal to travel with any sort of human remains, unless you have
a death warrant.
But it’s not clear if the women actually even knew what were in their souveniers.
• But at least they didn’t bring a human skull back from Haiti like a different Florida
woman, or bring 18 human heads WITH SKIN through customs at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
Because those things also happened.
2 – 240 live fish • You know how your bottles of liquid can
only be a certain size for you to carry them on the plane?
Like, less than three ounces?
• Well, one guy took things maybe just a BIT further than that.
• He took four hard suitcases.
• And he filled them all up with water.
• And in those four water-filled suitcases, he put TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY LIVE FISH.
• Why did he need 240 fish?
Why DIDN’T he need any clothes in those suitcases?
These are mysteries we don’t have the solutions to.
1 – Knife enchilada • Recipe for the perfect enchilada: Rice,
beans, chicken, mole sauce, all wrapped up in a tortilla with an 8-and-a-half-inch knife
inside.
• Wrap in foil, smuggle onto airplane.
• At least that’s how one woman tried to do it.
It appears to be an innocent enough accident – the woman didn’t appear to know how
the knife had gotten into the enchilada.
• The TSA even cleared her to fly after confiscating the knife.
But you have to figure they probably saved somebody from a very unpleasant first bite.