Posted on 05/28/2019 7:14:18 AM PDT by Red Badger
Canada slapped a traveler with a $15,000 fine after he was caught at the airport with a bizarre, blood-sucking secret in his carry-on luggage, officials said.
Ippolit Bodounov of Niagara Falls, Ontario, had flown from Russia to Canada on Oct. 17, 2018, when agents discovered “a large quantity of live leeches in his carry-on luggage” at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, the country’s environment and climate change agency said in a news release Monday.
“An enforcement officer detained the leeches to identify the species and determine if the import was lawful,” environment officials said.
Lawful it was not: Bodounov pleaded guilty in an Ontario court on Friday to charges that he violated the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, Canadian officials said. The fine will be put into the country’s Environmental Damages Fund, officials said. He’s also barred from importing and exporting regulated endangered animals for the next year.
Gerry Brunet of the environment agency’s wildlife enforcement division said a border agent dog smelled the trove of leeches — 4,788 of them — which were kept in 10 small, wet cloth bags tucked in a reusable grocery bag, the CBC reports. Canada’s environment agency did not immediately respond to McClatchy’s request for comment on the total number of leeches seized.
Canadian officials said the worldwide illegal wildlife trade is worth as much as $20 billion each year “and threatens many of the world’s most treasured wildlife species.”
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
He’s smuggling IRS agents? Illegal aliens?
15,000 blood sucking leeches? Toronto?
I guess they come across the northern border as well.
Oopsy! “15,000 blood sucking leeches” s.b. “5,000 blood sucking leeches”
Is there a big market for leeches?
Seems like a strange thing to smuggle.
$20 each........................
I was thinking politicians.
Glad I wasnt behind him in the security line...
Really tiny politicians.
At least he didn’t keister them..
Wonder what what they did with the leeches?
If they were destroyed, what’s the point of the laws?.......................
From National Geographic: The European medicinal leech is one of two species typically used in hospitals and clinics around the world. Its saliva contains a powerful anticoagulant that can help combat blood clotting. The other is the southern medicinal leech.
The democrat clown car only holds about 24 blood sucking leeches.
Smuggled varmints, because the smugglers bypass quarantine, can be carriers of diseases that could do great harm to native species or people...
If they were ‘endangered’, then they should be returned to the country from which they were stolen..................
TSA agent: You selected for an intrusive search. Drop your pants. ... What the hell is that? A leech?
Passenger: It’s shrinkage, I tell you.
5,000 Democrats?
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