Weirdest Items Seized by Customs

The New York Daily News was kind enough to create a nifty little slideshow of the craziest items seized by customs officials at New York area airports.

The list, which contains lots of things related to narcotics, is pretty amusing, if only because you get to see how people tried to smuggle illegal things into the country. Naturally, anytime someone stuffs dead pigeons in their pants, though, it's going to be the most amusing thing. And remind me of GOB.

And That's Why ... You Don't Carry 110 Pounds of Drugs in Your Luggage

There are countless ways -- so I'm told -- to smuggle drugs into the country. One of those, naturally, is the old standby: using your luggage. The additional "Jackie Brown" (or Rum Punch for Elmore Leonard aficionados) spin on this is simply getting a flight attendant to handle the smuggling for you.

They rarely get checked. Which typically makes this a more viable alternative than filling your shampoo bottle with an illegal substance. But when they do, well, things can get kind of ugly.

A South African Airways crew is free on bail in London after being questioned about drugs that were discovered in bags at Heathrow Airport.

British Revenue and Customs officials say three pilots and 12 flight attendants were taken into custody after 110 pounds of marijuana and eight pounds of cocaine worth more than $220,000 were found in three bags following a flight from Johannesburg to London.

That is, too paraphrase Led Zeppelin, a whole lotta drugs. (Ba-da-da-dump-dump-dump...) OK, but no, seriously, it is. It's like filling your entire travel pillow with chalkdust. That's illegal. Or stuffing your dog with pot and then trying to carry him through security. Or ... you know what? I'm just going to stop while I'm ahead.

In silver lining news, at least these flight attendents weren't on the U.S. Airways flight that landed in the Hudson. They'd be pulling a pretty shoddy profit margin right now.