Flying High

More drug smuggling. More things I don't understand. Seriously, how do people think that they're going to get away with such an asinine plan? More importantly, how do they even attempt to pull it off?

Case in point is these two dimwits who got arrested at Lima's international airport on Saturday. According to Yahoo! News, a one 37-year old Roxana Laercia and a one 28-year old Michael Eguonoghen were trying to board a plane. The problem is that most airlines have a problem with you bringing illegal drugs onto the plane. And they don't care what amount of drugs that you have. Drugs on a plane are frowned upon. That's why I'm guessing that those folks were none too happy when this chick tried to board with 24 pounds of cocaine that was stashed "...between her clothes". I'm afraid to ask how they found out that the guy had swallowed 3.3 pounds of heroin capsules.

HOW on earth does one shove 24 pounds of cocaine "between her clothes"? Twenty four pounds of anything is a lot of that thing! Think of a five pound bag of flour. They're heavy, right? Of course they are! They're five pounds of freaking flour! Now, substitute cocaine for the flour and try toting around five of those bags. Good freaking luck! And swallowing 3.3 pounds of anything is a lot of something to swallow. Wouldn't it have been easier for him to simply shove it up his out door cavity? I don't know if my stomach could handle 3.3 pounds of something in it. That's like thirteen Quarter Pounders. Granted, you couldn't get me to eat even one Quarter Pounder. I was merely making an analogy. It's a lot of heroin to down at one time!

Anyway, they got arrested and I got confused. It's not that I don't understand why people smuggle drugs. I do. I don't understand why they do it in such dumbass ways like the one described here. Oh, wait. They do drugs. That explains it. Don't do drugs, kids. One minute, you think you're just taking a harmless toke off of a joint. The next minute, you're downing 3.3 pounds of heroin and hopping a Peruvian plane to London. That's no way to go through life, son.

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Intestinal Fortitude

The other day we learned about a woman in Scranton, PA who was arrested with something like 51 packages of heroin, 30-some odd drug baggies, 8-1/2 prescription pills and fifty-two dollars and twenty two cents, all conveniently packaged within the warmth and comfort of her own vagina. Well, if she's looking for a date or something, I think I have found the perfect person to hook her up with.

Meet Neil Lansing. Mr. Lansing resides in Sarasota County, Florida. According to the blog Jonathan Turley (Mr. Turley is a "...nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law." I find his blog to be very interesting.), when Mr. Lansing was being booked into jail, a "virtual Cornucopia" turned up during the cavity search. In case you're unfamiliar with a cavity search, let me just say that those doing the searching were not dentists. I'll let you noodle the rest of that through.

Inside of his rectum (for those of you still noodling, you can probably stop now, as I'm sure you can figure out which cavity we are referring to here) they found some contraband. Let me take this opportunity to mention that I am really glad that my career path has taken me in directions so that I will never have to be in the position of discovering items that someone has shoved up their bodily cavities that are supposed to be "Out Only". But I digress. They found the following items:

17 Oxycodone pills

1 cigarette (Really? Up...there? You can't tell me that thing was still in tact after all of the...inserting and...removing. Cigarettes are kind of fragile. They're certainly not meant for deep drilling purposes.)


6 matches (It doesn't specify what kind of matches. I'm hoping that they were waterproof.)

1 flint (A flint?!?! Was he expecting to be participating in some sort of Boy Scout Jamboree? Having a flint up your ass is probably the epitome of the slogan "Be prepared".)

1 empty syringe with eraser over needle (Of course. An eraser. For protection. Safety first! What, pray tell, what he planning on injecting with said syringe? Never mind. I don't want to know.)

1 lip balm container (It doesn't say if there was any lip balm actually in the container. I could see not wanting chapped lips, but considering where the balm would be coming from, I think I'd tough it out.)

1 condom (Again, safety first! I certainly hope that he was planning on removing all of his supplies before he would be taking one for the team. I'm guessing that there's not much room in there for anything else, let alone Bubba's penis.)

1 CVS receipt (For tax purposes. Sure. That makes sense. It's either that or he was planning on returning something. Please, sir. For the love of all that is good and has not been up your rear end, please don't try to return any of that. )

And finally, one...coupon? (What the what? OK, I understand being frugal and thrifty, but in jail? What's he planning to save a dollar on? Is that where he normally keeps his coupons? What's that like when he goes to check out? "Just a minute. I have a coupon for that. Where is it?...Let's see...I know I brought it with me...Oh! That's right! I have inserted it into my rectum!"

Mr. Lansing was subsequently charged with being a dumbass. OK, that wasn't the official charge, but do you have a better name for it?

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Is That a Snake or Are You Happy to See Me?

I understand why people smuggle drugs. It's because there's enough money to be made that the rewards outweigh the risks. I mean, that's the kind of sense that it makes to the people who actually smuggle drugs. To me, the very real possibility of going to prison for eons does outweigh the rewards. That's the number one reason that I'm not a drug mule. (Well, that and the fact that I prefer to think of my sphincter as 'exit only'.) But while I understand the drug smuggling trade, I do not understand the creature smuggling trade.

And there are some pretty strict laws in place against smuggling animals of many sorts into a variety of countries. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I surmised that the United States probably is more vigilant against people smuggling exotic animals into this country than they are against people smuggling other people into this country. (Oh! What am I saying?! Silly me, this country barely enforces the borders that it has! There's no need to smuggle! Just wander on over! Come on! Hola!)

I don't know how I would smuggle animals if I were to go into that line of work. I'd want to smuggle something cute, though. Like kittens or bunnies or puppies. Especially if I had to smuggle the creatures on my person. The cuter, the better if I'm doing that. I would absolutely NOT smuggle live royal pythons taped to my chest which, of course, means that I would also absolutely NOT smuggle live geckos taped to my legs. I especially wouldn't do this in Norway and if I did I surely wouldn't forget about the tarantula in my bag that would tip off the officials to my sinister scheme. I would NOT do any of that. But this guy would. Behold!

OH, what the hell is that? According to a section in the L.A. Times called L.A. Unleashed-all things animals in Southern California and beyond (doncha know?) THAT is a guy who was discovered "...during a routine customs check of passengers who had just arrived via ferry into Kristiansand." (By the way, Kristiansand is apparently in Norway. He was travelling from Denmark, if that's of any assistance to you.) Yeah, see, in each one of those little socks is a baby royal python and there's fourteen of the suckers! Behold!

Good Lord, I think I'm gonna be sick. Fourteen snakes. But wait! There's more! Behold!

::: whimper ::: What the hell is that, you ask? THAT would be ten, yes ten, ten cans of baby geckos! Bwah-ah-ahhhhh! (I feel like the Count from Sesame Street.) And, why yes, they are taped to his legs! What is wrong with people?! I don't know either, but here are the geckos. ::: sigh ::: Behold.

Well, according to The Sun, the guy claimed that "...he was a collector and had bought the creatures legally in Denmark." Um, I've known a lot of people that "collect" a lot of things, but that doesn't make it necessarily legal or anything. The ones that do "collect" things and are doing so legally certainly don't feel the need to tape them to any spare space that they may have and may not be using upon their body! Ever think you'll see a stamp collector do that? How about weird, still lives at home in the basement, baseball card collector guy? (Granted, he'll do weird stuff, but none of it will involve taping his baseball cards to his body. Yet.) By the way, just to give you some sort of an idea as to how many geckos this actually is (other than the number 12 I've already provided you), I've taken the liberty to Photoshop twelve geckos onto this man's legs. It's disgusting. Behold!

But I guess it doesn't matter if he bought them legally or what kind of a "collector" he is, importing reptiles into Norway (ie, taping them to your body and hoppin' on a ferry) is against the law. And while all of this is weird, here's the part that I really don't get. You wouldn't think I'd have to ask you to guess how they figured this out, would you? Seems pretty obvious how they figured it out, doesn't it? Well, it didn't quite happen that way.

No, see, they found a tarantula in his bag and that's when they decided that they'd give him a little full body search as well. Wait. What?

Correct. They found a tarantula in his bag. THAT is what tipped them off. The tarantula. In his bag. What in the world was this man wearing? The world's biggest parka? How can you not know that there are fourteen snakes and twelve geckos taped to someone's body? Are they not moving around? And look at that picture. It's not like they don't stick out a fair amount! You're telling me that if it weren't for that spider crawling around in his bag that he would have made it through customs with the reptile cage of the zoo strapped to himself? Are we supposed to be happy about that? I don't think I am. I just don't think I am.

So let's put all of this together, shall we? We've got the guy with the geckos and the pythons who gets caught smuggling all of these creatures on his person because of the inexplicable ONE tarantula in his bag. We've seen what the geckos all look like if they were just taped onto him instead of stuffed into what appear to be Skoal tins. Now let's see how many snakes that looks like, courtesy of yours truly here and Photoshop. Behold!

And they couldn't have figured this out without the tarantula in the bag?! I find that hard to believe. You're telling me they couldn't find THIS:

But THIS they caught onto right away:
OK, then. Good luck with that, Norway. Gooooooood luck with that.

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Bye-bye birdie

OK, I don't know if this story is all that great, but I do know that the main photo that comes with this story is absolutely spectacular. Where to begin? Where to begin?

I guess the best place to start would be with the smoky folks over there at The Smoking Gun. They bring us the story of two California men, a one Sony Dong (nice name) and a one Duc Le (not quite as pretty sounded as Sony Dong, but a fine name) who were indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, with Le also earning charges of making false statements to the US Fish & Wildlife Service (never lie to Fish & Wildlife! It will always come back to haunt you. THey don't mess around when it comes to the fish, not to mention the wildlife.) and Dong being charged with multiple counts of importing goods by means of a false statement. All charges stemmed from the allegedly smuggling of Asian songbirds, apparently from Vietnam, into the United States.

OK, bird smuggling. An odd way to make a living, I'm thinking, but I suppose you find your niche in life and you go with it. Preferably you're going to want to go with it better than these guys did as to not get arrested and face between 10 to 28 years in Federal prison, but you do want to hone your talents. I don't know, I guess when I hear 'smuggling', I think drugs. I don't hear 'smuggling' and think Tweetybird. Though I don't remember Tweetybird being Asian. He did have a unusual speech pattern, though, so maybe he was.

Here's the point: If you're smuggling birds from Vietnam to the United States and you're flying here, you have to have some place to conceal the birds. And on the alleged flight that the alleged birds were allegedly smuggled on, there were allegedly 32 of said concealed birds. In case you are unfamiliar with the number to bird ratio of quantity measure, 32 birds is a lot of birds.

Here comes the math. 18 of said birds were allegedly in a suitcase. 5 of those birds ended up dying. Quite frankly, I'm surprised any of them managed to survive a flight from Vietnam to the United States in an airplane cargo hull enclosed inside of a suitcase. But wait. We're still fourteen birds short. If they weren't in the suitcase, then where were they?

I'll show you where they were. Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that?! That would be a photo of the man's legs and what would appear to be his bird smuggling support hose. According to The Smoking Gun, Customs and Border Protection stopped the man at LAX and when they "inspected Dong and "found bird feathers and droppings on his socks, as well as birds' tail feathers visible under his pants." " Ewww! Ewww, but DUH! Feathers and poop on his socks?!

The CBP agents, upon further investigation and pantleg lifting, discovered "14 live birds attached to two flat pieces of cloth that were wrapped around his calves. The birds each appear to have been placed in sleeves that were hooked on to the cloth around Dong's legs." Yes! That is exactly what it appears is going on there! I know that they have to be thorough for the reports and for accuracy and to ensure that evidence is presented fairly at any trial that may occur, but my God, sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words (even if most of those words are "Holy crap!"

In case you were wondering, "The birds included three red-whiskered bul-buls (which is listed as an injurious species under federal law), four magpie robins and six shama thrush." " So there you have it! Me, I know what none of those birds look like or ARE, for that matter.

The part that surprises me the most? I'm not so sure that it's the fact he has 14 live birds strapped to his legs. Sure, that's surprising, but I don't think that it's more surprising than the fact that he was able to BOARD THE PLANE in Vietnam in the first place! And if you think I"m impressed that they caught the guy at LAX, I'm not! As the press release statement says that when a search warrant of Le's residence was executed, they found 70 large birdcages and 51 Asian songbirds. Dong said that the birds were purchased for about $50 apiece and that they resold them in the US for around $300-$400 apiece. So obviously, they had done this BEFORE and it worked!!

Grand! Here's the picture that we've painted. We've got a guy from Vietnam getting on a plane. He has 14 SONGbirds strapped to his legs and there are "feathers and droppings on his socks, as well as birds' tail feathers visible under his pants." I can't imagine that the SONGbirds were not want to burst into song at some point during this little caper. But aside from that, feathers out the pants, droppings on the socks, birds on the legs, so SO many clues and yet, apparently, it was working for them!

So, tell me again why in the hell I'm taking off my shoes when I'm getting ready to fly somewhere? It's obviously not to check for songbird droppings on my socks because if it WAS then those guys never would have managed to pull this off AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE!

Man, I feel safer already. Oh, wait. That's right. I don't.

And thanks to The Daily Telegraph, we have photos of other people smuggling a variety of things into a variety of countries. Here's a guy with two live pigeons taped to his legs (there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.):

You know, you really have to assume that they don't let anyone who doesn't know what's going on in the room when they're taking these pictures. Imagine if someone walked in on something like that. There's a guy standing there wearing socks and no shoes with his pants pulled down around his ankles and a bunch of pigeons taped to his legs! If you could muster up the strength to backpedal out of the room, you've probably just run off shouting, "My eyes! My EYES!"

Above is what is known as an 'egg smuggling vest'. It works just like it looks like it would work. There are little pouches on the vest and you put eggs of some kind of creature in there and then you wear it on the plane. (I'm assuming they do this by plane. I'm not imagining this for smuggling via boat.) If anyone asks, you just tell them that you have abs of steel and try to look inconspicuous when you say that.

Here are the eggs that are inside of the vest. These smugglers pay rapt attention to detail, as each egg is clearly labled. I enjoy a tidy egg smuggling vest.

Here is a woman wearing an apron that was constructured to smuggle tropical fish into the country. Did she really think that no one was going to notice that? She's like a human prize rack at a carnival.

Need to smuggle just a few eggs or even just a few more eggs into the country? Run out of room in your egg smuggling vest? Then the egg smuggling underwear are just the thing for you! Behold!

What about other animals, you ask? What about reptiles? Do they smuggle reptiles into the country in the same way that they smuggle birds? No. Not quite. Below is the picture of a snake inside of a ceramic garden gnome to be smuggled into the country. It's really the sort of image that can get you thinking. Or just keep you up all night. I think it's the latter.

You're really going to have to be more creative than whoever the guy was that just crammed some pythons into a suitcase and went happily to the airport. Too bad all of that luggage screening and x-raying got in the way there.


Or this guy who just went with the ol' standby "Frog In A Tube".



And it's cousin, "Bird In A Tube."



I'll tell you this much. After seeing all of these various ways folks try to smuggle animals into this country, if those people would put all of this energy and effort toward a legitimate business, I can guarantee they'd do just fine. AND they wouldn't run the risk of getting arrested and thrown into Federal prison for 10+ years. But that's just me apparently, as these guys don't seem to have any intention of not doing this.

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