Snakes on a plane: Indian smuggler caught with venomous vipers

A passenger smuggling dozens of venomous vipers was stopped after flying into India from Thailand. (Mumbai Customs Zone III via X)

A passenger smuggling dozens of venomous vipers was stopped after flying into the financial capital Mumbai from Thailand, Indian customs officials said.

The snakes, which included 44 Indonesian pit vipers, were “concealed in checked-in baggage”, Mumbai Customs said in a statement late Sunday.

“An Indian national arriving from Thailand was arrested,” it added.

The passenger, details of whom were not released, also had three Spider-tailed horned vipers -- which are venomous, but usually only target small prey such as birds -- as well as five Asian leaf turtles.

Mumbai Customs issued photographs of the seized snakes, including blue and yellow reptiles squirming in a bucket.

The snakes are a relatively unusual seizure in Mumbai, with customs officers more regularly posting pictures of hauls of smuggled gold, cash, cannabis or pills of suspected cocaine swallowed by passengers.

However, in February, customs officials at Mumbai airport also stopped a smuggler with five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Those small creatures, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were “ingeniously concealed” in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger’s trolley bag, customs officers said.

In November, customs officers seized a passenger carrying a wriggling live cargo of 12 turtles, and a month before, four hornbill birds, all on planes arriving from Thailand.

In September, two passengers were arrested with five juvenile caimans, a reptile in the alligator family.