A 28-year-old Korean man has been arrested by police in Peru after he was busted for allegedly trying to smuggle 325 tarantulas, 110 centipedes, and nine bullet ants on a 12-hour flight from the Peruvian capital, Lima, to Paris.
The man had intended to connect at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport onto a second 12-hour flight to Seoul, South Korea, but he is now in custody facing charges of attempting to smuggle an endangered species out of the country.
The incident occurred on November 8 when the unnamed Korean suspect tried to get through the airport security checkpoint ahead of his Air France flight to Paris. As the man passed through the metal detector arch, security officers noticed that his chest was bulging and stopped him for a secondary search.
When the man was asked to lift up his top, the officers were stunned to find hundreds of spiders, centipedes, and ants in Ziploc bags and small plastic containers strapped to two sashes that the man was wearing across his body.
The National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) was called in to take over the investigation and handle the animals.
There were 35 adult tarantulas that were the size of a human hand, 285 juvenile tarantulas packed in plastic boxes, 110 centipedes, and nine bullet ants. All of the specimens are native to the Peruvian Amazon and, in the case of the tarantulas, are an endangered species.
SERFOR says that it anticipates a surge in illegal wildlife trafficking in the run-up to Christmas as collectors seek to get their hands on seasonal presents.
Last October, two passengers tried to fly from Bangkok to Taipei with at least 28 turtles, two otters, several rodents, a snake, and a marmot stuffed in their hand luggage.
Despite managing to evade airport security, the suspects ended up getting caught when two of the animals managed to escape during the three-hour flight to Taiwan.
A couple of months later, a Taiwanese man was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport after he was busted trying to smuggle a prairie dog and two otters stuffed down his pants.
