Airport smuggler caught with 'monkey in pants'

Smuggler caught with 'monkey in pants'
Smuggler caught with 'monkey in pants'

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A smuggler has been caught trying to hide a live Loris monkey in his underwear at India's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

The suspect from the United Arab Emirates, who was detained along with two other travellers, had arrived from Bangkok, and was about to board a connecting flight to Dubai on Jet Airways, according to news.com.au.

The site reports that a customs official said: "Security personnel found the monkey in his underwear while frisking the transit passengers."

The little Loris monkey measured seven inches in length and weighed 150 grammes.

The three men, named as Al Dhaheri Hamad, Al Shamsi Mohammed, Al Shamsi Rashid, confessed they had also been smuggling another monkey but ditched it in a bin because they could not carry it any further.

According to the Telegraph, an official to the the Press Trust of India: "On their direction another little monkey was recovered from a dustbin in the airport. They had abandoned him as they were unable to carry him."

The men were questioned by wildlife and customs officials and were arrested under India's Wildlife Act.

Loris monkeys are an endangered species indigenous to South East Asia and India, and are thought by some to possess aphrodisiac qualities.

Both the monkeys were handed over to animal welfare organisation People for Animals headed up by former environment minister Maneka Gandhi.

The men are certainly not the first to attempt to smuggle live animals through customs in their pants; back in September 2011, a man was caught trying to smuggle 12 hummingbirds in a special pouch in his underwear.

And, in August last year, a man was arrested after attempting to board a flight from Miami to Brazil with exotic snakes and tortoises stuffed in his trousers.

A spokesman from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Jonathon Allen, said the man was stopped after passing through a body scanner at Miami International Airport.

Security officials spotted the women's tights filled with seven snakes and three tortoises hidden in the man's trousers.

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