Indian Customs in Mumbai said they have stopped an airline passenger arriving from Thailand with a curly cargo of live snakes, the third such seizure this month.
“Customs officers … Foiled yet another smuggling experiment with wildlife, 16 live snakes … The grip of passengers returning from Thailand,” said customs officers at the airport in the Indian financial hub.
The passenger, who arrived on Sunday, has been arrested, the Customs Eagan said in a statement with “further investigation in progress”.
The living snakes included reptiles that were often sold in the pet trade, and were largely non-friendly or with poison for the weak to influence humans.
They included bardter snakes, a rhinoceros hose and a Kenyan sand boa, among others.
At the beginning of June, customs officers stopped a passenger who smuggles dozens of toxic vipers who also arrived from Thailand.
Days later, officers stopped another traveler with 100 beings including lizards, sunbirds and wooden-climbing options.
Wildlife Trade Monitor traffic fighting the smuggling of wild animals and plants has warned of a “very worrying” tendency to trade in the exotic pet trade.
More than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, have been seized along the Thailand India Flying Route for the past 3.5 years, says.
The hoses are a relatively unusual seizure in Mumbai, where customs officers regularly post pictures of traits of smuggled gold, cash, cannabis or pills of suspected cocaine swallowed by passengers.
In February, however, customs officials at Mumbai Airport also stopped a smuggler with five Siamang Gibbons, a small monkey resident in the forest of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
These little beings, listed as threatened by the International Union for Nature Conservation, were “brilliant hidden” in a plastic box placed inside the passenger’s carriage bag, customs officers said.
In November, Customs seized a passenger carrying a curly live cargo of 12 turtles, and a month before, four hornbill birds, all on aircraft arriving from Thailand.
In September, two passengers were arrested with five young caimans, a reptile in the alligator family.
