CROC AND AWE

Passenger Busted After Shocking Secret Found in His Luggage

The discovery was likely the last thing that airport officials expected to be in the man’s bag.

A plane passenger has been found with a crocodile head in his bag. Authorities found the Italian man with the dried cranium of an endangered croc at Caselle Airport in Turin after he arrived from Miami via Istanbul. Italy’s financial police squad said in a statement that the head had been wrapped in brown paper in a bid to conceal it from authorities. After the head’s seizure, the man—who has not been named—became the subject of an investigation on suspicion of smuggling a specimen from an endangered species, The Guardian reports. “The item was seized because it had been imported without the required certificate or license,” police said. The man could face a fine of between the equivalent of $23,000 and $230,000 if he is found to be in breach of the Washington Convention and convicted. The convention was signed in 1973 to reduce the international trade of rare animals and plants.