I for one could never smuggle so much as a single eccy through airport security. Not because I’m morally opposed to the idea of trafficking, necessarily, or that the prospective financial gains wouldn’t tickle my fancy. I just straight up do not have the sand for it.
It takes a cool head and an ice cold heart to walk calmly through those checkpoints with a belt of heroin strapped around your torso. But imagine having a bunch of live, fragile and very much illegal chook eggs stuffed down your jeans while you passed through border control.
https://giphy.com/gifs/security-airport-wand-4GZrWpDxzbrYk
Such was the gauntlet run by one Dang Thaow: a Canberra local who tried slipping three fertilised chicken eggs past customs officials by stowing them away in his undies.
When Thaow was arrested at Sydney International Airport back in November 2015, his immediate defence was that he intended to eat the eggs for medicinal purposes. DNA testing quickly revealed, however, that these magical health eggs in fact contained live baby chookens. Whether Thaow was planning on having a peck at the chicks as well is unclear, but it’s safe to assume that the warm, slightly moist climate of his panties would have served as an effective incubation chamber.
He pleaded guilty to one count of illegal importation under the Quarantine Act earlier this week, and was slapped with a $660 fine. Dr Robyn Cleland of the federal Agriculture Department points out that “Fertile chicken eggs are high biosecurity risk items as they can carry exotic diseases such as Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza.”
A search warrant was also issued on Thaow’s Canberra residence, where investigators found a number of chickens and hens locked up in cages. Once again opting for the trusty ‘deny til you die’ approach, Thaow reckons the birds aren’t his.
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Source: The Canberra Times
Feature image: International Veterinary Poultry Congress
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