Smuggling animals across borders is, sadly, a very common practice. We all have the typical movie image in out head of a large smuggling operation, with a cargo plane full to brim with cages of exotic animals landing in an airstrip in the middle of the jungle where bad guys in cargo pants and armed to their teeth count money and yell about transport, but the reality is scarier and a lot less dramatic, mostly people just use regular luggage and regular airports to try to transport these creatures. This is what has happened this week when a man has been detained for attempting to smuggle 16 live snakes from Thailand to India in a suitcase.

For the horror movie fans, yes, we have seen that movie before, but this may actually be worse since it happened in real life and the consequences would have been bad for real people and not actors in a movie, but the plot is surprisingly similar and does not get any better just because we feel like we have seen the ending.

The smuggling of animals like snakes through customs, a sad and common practice

Smuggling is a billion dollar industry, and every year there are millions of animals that are plucked from their natural habitats and transported across borders either to go to collectors or to be sold for their properties in a country that appreciated them differently.

This incredibly brazen attempt to transport snakes through customs was thankfully thwarted by the Mumbai International Airport’s customs department, who published a statement on social media explaining “Customs officers at CSMI Airport, Mumbai Customs Zone-III foiled yet another wild life smuggling attempt […],” the June 29 social-media post said. “Passenger arrested. Further investigation underway.”

According to a Hindustani Times report, authorities detained a 34-year-old man from Chennai who had flown into Mumbai from Bangkok. The seized shipment contained various snake species, including garter snakes, rhino rats, albino rats, Kenyan sand boas, and California kingsnakes. AFP noted that these types are commonly found in the exotic pet market and are either non-venomous or possess venom that poses little threat to humans.

This is not the first time by a long shot that something like this has happened, and it is not even the most brazen attempt this month. As an example, earlier this month, authorities stopped a traveler arriving from Thailand who was attempting to smuggle venomous vipers into the country. Shortly after, another passenger was caught trying to bring in over 100 animals, including lizards and possums. According to data reported by AFP and compiled by the wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic, more than 7,000 live or dead animals have been confiscated from passengers on flights between Thailand and India over the past three and a half years.

Traffic’s Southeast Asia director, Kanitha Krishnasamy, is quoted by CBS as saying: “The almost-weekly discoveries and diversity of wildlife en route to India is very troubling.”

But the more troubling part is that despite custom’s best efforts to stop the smuggling, it clearly continues to happen and be profitable, as the lost cargo does not seem to register in the industry and more attempts continue to be made, which suggests that the routes are not entirely airtight.

This means that for every confiscated animal, at least another one goes through and that we need to be a lot more vigilant and improve our techniques to detect them in order to cripple the trade, as it is not just dangerous for those who are in the aircrafts, but also the nationals of the countries involved in the trade as many animals could have parasites or illnesses that are unknown, and since they are unregistered and unlicensed, we would never know until it is too late.