WARSAW: A polish gardener was caught trying to smuggle plant cuttings, a bulb, a tuber and seeds through customs – all of it stuffed into his underpants.
The man was tagged twice by airport dogs – once by a drugs dog and then by a biosecurity detector dog, which both sniffed something suspicious near the man’s groin after he arrived as an air passenger at Auckland airport on Saturday.
He was then strip-searched by Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) staff who found him wearing two pairs of underpants to carry his booty.
The haul included ivy from a castle in Poland.
The man – a New Zealand resident – will now face charges under the Biosecurity Act for smuggling the Polish plants into New Zealand.
“He wanted the plants for his garden, saying he could not find them in New Zealand,” said Craig Hughes, MPI’s northern border clearance manager for passengers and mail.
“We have zero tolerance towards this type of behaviour, which could endanger New Zealand’s primary industries and native plant life by introducing foreign pests and diseases.”
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