Saturday, August 28, 2010

Tiger Cub Smuggled in Luggage

Remember those questions the TSA types used to ask you at the airport as to whether you packed your own bags, did someone give you something to carry?

As I recall, there was one question they used to ask which was tantamount to asking you if you'd seen anyone tampering with your luggage while you weren't looking!

This story has a little of that element in it. From the UK Daily Mail:

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At first glance it looked to airport officials like just another stuffed toy in a suitcase. But on closer inspection, the tiny tiger cub was found to be real and alive but unconscious after it was drugged.

Shocked police then arrested the woman owner of the luggage at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand where she was allegedly planning to smuggle the three-month-old animal to Iran.


It must have crawled into my suitcase! Honest!!!


The woman, identified as Thai national Piyawan Palasarn, 31, faces up to four years in prison and a 40,000 baht (£824) fine for two wildlife smuggling-related charges, police said.

She denied the luggage with the cub belonged to her and said another passenger had asked her to carry it for them, said Adisorn Noochdumrong, head of an international wildlife division at the conservation center.

The cub could have fetched about 100,000 baht (£2,060) on the black market in Iran, where it is popular to have exotic pets, Adisorn said. ($3195 USD)


Gee. There's a luggage check tag and lots of clothing and personal property associated along with that suitcase.

"If the jeans fit, you cannot acquit!" Heh.

Update: This story could give new meaning to the phrase "snarled" in airport traffic!

More at Left Coast Rebel

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