A traveller was detained by customs after trying to smuggle a live python down his trouser leg. Officers searched the man after spotting a pronounced wiggle in his thigh area as he arrived at Gatwick from Turkey.
A spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs said: “Its fangs had been removed, but it was quite jumpy. It made its presence known as the man walked through the Nothing to Declare channel.”
The 18in trouser snake is among an array of bizarre items seized at UK airports, including a turtle in a shoe box, a crocodile’s head in a rucksack and, most inexplicably, 104kg of live snails stashed in a Nigerian woman’s suitcases.