CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Some thought it was unusual: One of the latest parcels seized in Chicago by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents — water buffalo skin from Laos.
But a customs spokesman said strange shipments are seized all the time.
It was Dali the dog and her nose that detected the water buffalo skin in packets labeled “dried homemade vegetables.”
“Dali was able to sniff it out and smell the meat and alert to it, which meant that our handlers go ahead and pull that item due to the inspection — and this is what we found,” Steve Bansbach, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in Chicago, told WBBM Newsradio.
Sixty-one pounds of water buffalo skin from Laos was banned because it could carry foot-and-mouth disease, Bansbach said.
He said agents have seized a lot of things in various ports of entry.
“A pig’s head. Like a full-on pig’s head. We actually had in Cincinnati, body parts of a primate were hidden within red chili peppers. A shipment of red chili peppers,” he continued.
Bansbach said agents try to educate people on what they may and may not bring in — rather than fining them.
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