Customs officials in Germany made a nightmare discovery when they uncovered 1,500 young tarantulas stored inside cake boxes at an airport in the country. The young spiders were kept inside tubes, which were then stuffed inside cardboard sponge cake packaging. Workers at Cologne Bonn airport in north-western Germany were alerted to the skin-crawling find because of the pervasive smell the 15.4-lbs shipment from Vietnam emitted. Many of the arachnids did not survive the roughly 5,400-mile journey, which took place earlier this month. The surviving specimens were handed over to an expert handler. “My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the world, but the fact that they found around 1,500 small plastic containers containing young tarantulas in this package left even the most experienced among them speechless,” a spokesman for Cologne’s customs office said. It “saddens us to see what some people do to animals purely for profit,” he added. Criminal proceedings are underway against the intended recipient. They face charges relating to improper disclosure of the shipment, and trying to dodge the import duties required.
