HOUSTON, Texas – The U.S. Southern Border has been a contentious topic lately, especially with the presidential election just around the corner in November.
While illegal border crossings have seen a 72% decrease in Texas this year, experts say that smuggling operations have remained a consistent issue.
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KPRC’s Zach Lashway spoke to officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about how to spot counterfeit products that have been smuggled across the border. Look at some of the stranger items and smuggling methods that border agents have encountered during inspections.
Dozens of giant snails
In late June, customs agents in Detroit noticed an “odd odor” coming from a traveler’s bag. To their surprise, they found over 90 Giant Africtraveledan Land Snails, all of which were still alive.
According to agriculture specialists, the snails were intended to be eaten but were seized and ethically euthanized because of the potential risk they pose to public health and domestic crops alike.
A live spider monkey
On the subject of live animals, a Katy woman attempted to enter the U.S. in 2022 with a live spider monkey. While she initially claimed that the suspicious box in her car contained Mexican beer, border agents quickly found that she had been attempting to smuggle the animal across the border to sell it.
The woman involved initially tried to flee the scene but eventually turned herself into law enforcement. The monkey was also recovered and found a new home in a Florida animal shelter.
Xanax pills smuggled inside yarn spools
While drugs being smuggled across the border is hardly unusual, some smugglers have gotten particularly creative with their methods. Earlier this year, border agents in Philadelphia uncovered over 10,000 Xanax pills that had been carefully concealed inside spools of yarn.
The drugs were hidden well enough that they could have been easily missed, but sharp customs officers noticed that the spools were “unusually heavy” leading to the tedious process of unrolling the immense amounts of yarn and uncovering the pills.
Cocaine hidden within large amounts of sugar
In an effort appropriately nicknamed “Operation Sweetness,” Paraguayan officials made the largest cocaine bust in the country’s history earlier this month when they found over 4 tons of cocaine hidden inside bags of sugar.
The sugar was initially bound for Belgium, but was seized at the border after officials became suspicious. The bags, which took over a day’s work to sort through, ended up containing over $240 million of cocaine.
Baby Parrots
When customs agents at the Miami International Airport in Florida heard a loud chirping sound coming from one passenger’s bag, they expected to find a prohibited electronic device. To their shock, the chirping actually came from 29 parrot eggs, some of whom had hatched in the process of being transported.
The passenger carrying the eggs was arrested, and airport officials rushed to construct a makeshift incubator so they could save as many young birds as possible.
Pythons inside pants
While this might seem more than a little uncomfortable to the average person, python smuggling is profitable enough that one New York man attempted to carry three of the massive snakes across the U.S.-Canadian border.
The would-be smuggler tried to hide the Burmese pythons in his pants legs while he traveled across the border by bus. However, his situation became even more uncomfortable than it already was when border agents arrested him and seized the snakes.
While some of these cases might seem fairly ridiculous, border security is no joke. If you want to learn more about how to keep your family safe from counterfeit products and other items being smuggled across the border, tune in later tonight as KPRC takes an exclusive look at how custom agents search packages to keep the country safe and secure.