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Customs officials were stunned when while checking a plane passenger’s luggage they found 47 venomous vipers and five Asian leaf turtles concealed within his bag. 44 of the snakes were Indonesian pit vipers and three were spider-tailed horned vipers.
The passenger was busted with the 53 reptiles in his luggage at the airport in Mumbai city in India on Sunday. He was an Indian citizen who was returning from Thailand where he apparently made his massive snake haul, though the exact source of the reptiles was reportedly unclear.
The reptiles were seized under Indian wildlife protection laws and the unnamed passenger was taken into custody. According to the BBC, importing animals into India isn’t necessarily illegal, but India’s wildlife protection law ban the import of certain species, including those classified as endangered or protected by the government. There are also certain required permits and licenses that need to be acquired before importing any animals.
On 01.06.2025, officers at CSMIA seized 3 Spider-Tailed Horned Vipers & 5 Asian Leaf Turtles (CITES Appendix-II), along with 44 Indonesian Pit Vipers, concealed in checked-in baggage. An Indian national arriving from Thailand was arrested. pic.twitter.com/C07R2Y58ZX
— Mumbai Customs-III (@mumbaicus3) June 1, 2025
It could have been worse. In July of 2024, a man attempted to smuggle more than 100 live snakes through airport security into China by stuffing them inside his pants’ pockets. He attempted to pass through the “nothing to declare” gate with the serpents in his pants, but failed as he was still stopped by customs officers who found the snakes.
And in 2023, customs officials in the city of Chennai in India searched a woman’s check-in baggage that she brought on a flight that boarded in Kuala Lumpur and discovered it was home to 22 snakes (and a chameleon). That incident came just a few months after 45 ball pythons, three marmosets, three-star tortoises and eight corn snakes were confiscated from a passenger’s luggage at the same airport.