Norwegian customs foil smuggler carrying pythons, geckos

Oct 26, 2009, 13:42 GMT

Oslo - A random spot check by Norwegian customs officials resulted in the find of 14 baby pythons and 10 albino gecko lizzards strapped to the would-be smuggler's body, reports said Monday.

The incident took place Sunday when a man arriving with a passenger ferry from Denmark was stopped for a spot check. When customs officials found a box containing a tarantula in his luggage, they decided to search him more thoroughly.

The man then admitted that he was carrying other reptiles, a customs official told the regional Faedrelandsvennen newspaper.

Photos published on the newspaper's online site showed how the man, a 22-year-old Norwegian national, had strapped several layers of pouches around his chest and legs.

'All the reptiles were pretty small and when they roll up they don't take much place,' Knut Inge Brandsvoll of the customs in the southern port city of Kristiansand said.

The man faces charges of violating a ban against importing reptiles to Norway. He said he had bought them in Denmark, where they are legal, and had intended to keep them himself.

The pythons belonged to the python regius species, the smallest of the African pythons that can reach length of 1.5 metres.