A video shared by the agency showed the man walking confidently through the “no declaration necessary” queue at Futian checkpoint, one of the world’s busiest land ports.
He was called in for further inspection. Customs officials did not say what had aroused their suspicions or whether it was a lucky coincidence. An inspection revealed that he had six canvas drawstring bags sealed with tape in his trouser pockets.
“Upon opening, each bag contained multiple live snakes of various colours, shapes and sizes,” a customs statement said.
The video shows two officers examining the red, pink and black snake, which was squirming inside a plastic bag at the time the video was recorded.
The five species identified inside – milk snake, corn snake, Texas rat snake, western hognose snake and gopher snake – are all non-venomous and endemic to North America, but are frequently traded as exotic pets in China and are at risk of becoming invasive species.
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“Those who violate the rules… will be held accountable by law,” customs officials said. Anyone caught smuggling live animals into China can be fined up to 50,000 yuan (just under $7,000), and serious violations can lead to criminal prosecution.
Customs authorities have not disclosed the man’s nationality or his subsequent actions, and their Shenzhen office could not be reached for comment.
Futian is no stranger to “walking zoo” tourists: In September, a woman was found hiding 15 live snakes, four Amazonian giant centipedes (the world’s largest centipede species) and a blue lizard in her trouser pockets and hoodie, and a few months earlier, a woman was caught hiding five snakes in her tank top.
Beijing banned the poaching, transport and trade of wildlife in 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic allegedly began at a Wuhan market that sold wild animals. The Biosecurity and Disease Control Law prohibits the import, abandonment or release of exotic species without authorization.
China Customs launched a three-year campaign in 2023 to crack down on the smuggling and mailing of wildlife, announcing it had seized 1,186 foreign species, including 44,000 exotic pets, in one year.
Wild animals such as the alligator gar, a torpedo-shaped freshwater fish with sharp teeth, are not on the official list of invasive species and have been brought into the country as pets. In 2022, alligator gar sightings made national headlines after a city drained an entire lake over the course of several days to capture the gar.
