Snakes on a plane: Man caught with highly venomous vipers, five turtles at Mumbai airport
A man at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, after arriving from Thailand, was caught carrying 48 venomous snakes and five turtles, a customs official said.
The passenger was intercepted by customs officials on Saturday night after he got down from a Bangkok-originated flight, news agency PTI reported.
After discovering the 48 highly venomous viper snakes and five turtles, a team from Resqink Association for Wildfire Welfare assisted in the identification and handling of these species, he added.
Among these snakes were three Spider-tailed horned vipers, highly venomous and targeting only small prey like birds, as well as five Asian leaf turtles, an AFP report said.
As per the provisions under the Wildlife Protection Act, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau ordered that the reptiles be sent back to the country from which they were brought.
Snakes are comparatively an unusual seizure by customs in Mumbai, as officials more often catch gold smuggling, cash, or drugs swallowed by passengers.
Earlier in February, a smuggler with five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, was caught by customs officials at Mumbai airport.
Customs officials said that those small creatures, which are designated 'endangered' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were "ingeniously concealed" in a plastic crate inside the passenger's suitcase.
Just weeks ago, Mumbai customs officials seized gold and foreign currency worth nearly ₹1 crore at the airport.
The gold weighed 0.247 kg, valued at ₹21.96 lakh, and foreign currency equivalent to ₹76.23 lakh. A release from the Finance Ministry said that one passenger was also arrested under the Customs Act, 1962.
The seizures were made across two cases. Based on profiling, custom officers intercepted two passengers arriving in Mumbai from Bahrain and Daman, recovering a 24-karat gold bar having a net weight of 247 grams.
Another passenger was leaving from Mumbai for Bangkok and just while he was leaving, customs officials caught him with foreign currency USD 90,000 equivalent to ₹76.23 lakh.
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