TSA stops woman with a PYTHON stuffed inside external hard drive from boarding a flight to Barbados
Transportation Security Administration officers were in for a slithery surprise while screening the luggage of a woman traveling from Miami to Barbados last weekend.
TSA employees at Miami International Airport intercepted a Ball python, also known as royal python, on Sunday.
According to TSA spokesperson Sari Koshetz, the scaly contraband ‘had been artfully concealed inside the electronics of a hard drive’ and stashed inside a checked bag en route to Barbados.
During the security screening, a TSA luggage scanner detected an ‘organic mass’ inside the woman’s bag.
Koshetz says a bomb expert then examined the bag and discovered the live snake, which was nestled inside a nylon stocking.
‘While this mass inside the electronic device was obviously not an imminent terrorist threat to the traveling public, the kind we are always on high alert to, the interception did prevent a possible wildlife threat on an aircraft,’ she stated.
The passenger was fined, and the snake was taken into custody by US Fish and Wildlife Services. Neither woman nor snake made the flight.
Koshetz noted that animals have been known to escape and chew through wires ‘with fatal results.’
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