Koala, turtles, leeches and even Komodo dragons are lucrative game for smugglers

From the four e-mails I received from my 56 semi-regular readers over the past few months, it's clear they enjoy reading about dumb outdoor (and indoor) crooks.

And looking over my rather extensive files, I find many with what I would describe as a happy ending. So, with the Christmas season quickly closing in upon us, here are a few dumb crook tales to hopefully smile over.

A real 'tickler'

Picture this. A heavyset woman was standing before the U.S. Customs representative at the L.A. airport.

“No, I’m not bringing anything back with me,” she told him.

And he noticed she seemed to be a little impatient, always a tip-off, at the time. It was also about that time that the officer noticed something really unusual. It seemed the woman’s bra was developing a life of its own. So he asked again, “Are you sure you don’t have anything to declare?”

She began to get downright irritated. She was also apparently getting fidgety, wiggling slightly as if she was adjusting something under her clothing without drawing attention. Then her eyes got real big and she let out a little involuntary yelp.

Her hands flew to her chest and she made some quick “adjustments.” But the officer had seen enough. He called a female Customs officer over, and the lady was escorted to a small side-room where she was asked to disrobe.

Ten minutes later the Customs officer came out of the room cuddling a tiny bundle. There in her arms was a small and very cuddly Koala. That bundle of fur is now enjoying a life of ease at the San Diego Zoo, and the woman with the spastic bra paid a hefty fine.

Those poor turtles

Now lets cover gentlemen’s pants. It was the pants of a man at the Customs station at the Miami International Airport that caught a Customs officer’s attention.

They appeared to be lumpy, possessing “ominous bulges in some very unusual places.” And shortly after the man stated he had nothing to declare, his pants actually began to wiggle.

Well, he was escorted into a small room and asked to disrobe. When he began to drop his pants turtles began falling out.

“They were crawling everywhere,” one nervous Customs officer declared.

This wannabe smuggler had 55 red-footed tortoises sequestered inside his clothes. Each was around four inches long.

At the going rate of around $100 each on the pet market, his total haul was worth less than $6,000. Now he’s going to jail, and the turtles have new and very comfortable homes at four zoos in the southern Florida area.

A real monster of a case

Then there was “the case of the moaning suitcase,” as Perry Mason might title it.

A baggage handler was transferring suitcases from an airplane that had just arrived from Australia, and he clearly heard one of the suitcases moaning.

So he called his supervisor, who called Customs. Those folks responded and picked up the heavy case. They soon found the owner. He, the bag, and three Customs officers went into the little room where it was opened.

The owner was acting as if he were extremely nervous as he fumbled with the key. But after some verbal prodding from the officers the locks clicked open.

Only he didn’t lift the lid of the case. He didn’t have to. The lid exploded upward as a large and very irritated creature came rushing out and rapidly began running around the room. There was utter pandemonium in that room for several minutes as everyone rushed for the door and no one could get it open.

The creature was a half-grown Komodo dragon, a large (the largest) species of lizard that can grow to nine feet in length and eventually weigh more than 300 pounds. And those critters are meat eaters.

The 100-pound lizard ended up at the Bronx Zoo. The smuggler, who had a long list of previous convictions for wildlife smuggling, ended up in the poky.

This one's just plain gross

And on an ending note, and just for the record, I hate leeches. They are slimy, prone to sucking blood, and the only good use they might have is for bait.

So when I learned about a guy who was attempting to smuggle 5,000 of them into Canada, a shudder ran up my spine. After all, they are just nasty critters.

But that is exactly what Ippolit Bodounov, currently a resident of Niagara Falls, Canada, tried to do at the Toronto airport. He had (roughly) that number of live leeches inside his luggage. Officials later determined those leeches to be a species of regulated medicinal leches.

Why would anyone try to smuggle leeches anywhere? Money is always the ultimate culprit when it comes to smuggling any animals or protected products, including (ugh) leeches.

And how much money could this guy hope to receive from his seized bounty? Believe it or not, these leaches can cost up to $20 each on the lucrative black market. I did the math, and that comes out to $100,000.

Officials found the leeches wrapped inside wet cloths that were stored inside a shopping bag. They were “sniffed out” by a specially trained dog. And they were identified as belonging to the Hirudo verbena, a species valued for its medicinal anti-coagulative properties by an expert Canadian official.

Those slimy critters were also sent to the American Museum of Natural History in New York where tests were conducted to prove that the leeches were taken from the wild.

So our boy Bodounov was found guilty at trial, and he had to pay a fine of $15,000 plus all costs associated with his crime. He was also banned from importing, exporting, or even owning or possessing any animals protected under the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

And, he also violated several Canadian Wildlife and Plant Protection laws. In other words, his goose was cooked. Leeches? Ugh!!

Len Lisenbee is the Sunday Messenger’s Outdoor Columnist. Contact him at lisenbee@frontiernet.net

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Koala, turtles and Komodo dragons are lucrative game for smugglers