Ton of snakes seized on plane

Doesn't give much information but if most were surronded by ice water then I'm guessing this was a food shipment.
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Tonne of snakes on a plane to Vietnam

A Vietnam Airlines flight to Hanoi arrived from Bangkok with a tonne of live grass-snakes, Vietnam Net news agency reported on Friday.

Sixty bags marked “fresh fish,” marked for a fake address in Hanoi were inspected by customs officers who discovered the snakes on Thursday, the agency said.

Snakes are banned from being transported across regional borders into Vietnam; they were transferred to the Soc Son Wildlife Rescue Centre.

The agency quoted an official from the Noi Bai Goods Service Joint Stock Company as saying this is the first time live snakes have been discovered. Related agencies are seeking the snake senders and receivers.

Last Dec 19, Thai Airways transported more than 700 dead snakes from Indonesia to Vietnam, also registered as fresh fish. Customs officers didn’t discover the sender or receiver’s identities. The dead snakes were destroyed.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_....php?id=125254
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Ton of snakes seized on plane
Story Highlights
Authorities in Vietnam seized more than a ton of snakes on plane
The flight from Thailand was carrying 60 boxes filled with rat snakes
Officials said the shipment had been declared as live fish

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Authorities in Vietnam seized more than a ton of snakes that were smuggled in on an airplane from Thailand, officials said Friday.

Thousands of the nonvenomous rat snakes were shipped as cargo in 60 boxes on a Vietnam Airlines flight from Bangkok to Hanoi's Noi Bai airport Thursday, said airline spokesman Trinh Ngoc Thanh.

Thanh said the shipment had been declared as live fish.

Many of the snakes, which were surrounded by plastic filled with ice water, have died, said Nguyen Ba Oanh, director of the Wild Animal Rescue Center near Hanoi where the snakes were taken.

The reptiles each weighed between 200 grams (0.44 pounds) to 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). The official Vietnam News Agency reported that the snakes, which are protected animals, may have been headed to another country.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html

I'm thinking that they had to surround them in ice to keep up the ruse of being fish....not real bright, you'd think they'd figure out it'd kill the poor snakes.

Sad.

Pressumably they were going for the food market so I doubt they cared if they arrived dead or alive as long as they made it "fresh".

6.6 pound rat snake? What kind of rat snake gets that big? Maybe it was a mixed shipment?
Good that they caught some smugglers.

Its sad but it happens all the time.

As for the rat snakes some species or asian rats such as p. mucos can reach up to 12' so 6 pounds is completely possible.

I hate to hesr about cases like this but at least they stopped it.

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has seized more than a ton of ratsnakes found aboard a Vietnam Airlines flight from Bangkok, the second time in about a month such snakes were found in air cargo to Vietnam, state media said on Friday

The snakes -- scientific name Ptyas Mucosus and a protected species -- were found in more than 60 boxes that arrived in Hanoi's Noi Bai airport on Thursday, the Vietnam News Agency quoted officials as saying.

"There is a great possibility that Vietnam is only a transit point of the cargo," it said, adding that the snakes were transferred to an animal caring station nearby.

Last month, the airport authorities also seized 1,550 pounds of snakes aboard a Thai Airways flight to Hanoi, it said.

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Alex Richardson


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080118/...1hmhhn_dwSH9EA

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This is one unhappy looking rat snake and it looks like it might go six pounds, the picture is from 2006 and not from the shipment. It was from the above article and demonstrates the pleasant nature of Asian ratsnakes.