Fish Pants Smuggler Faces $77,000 Fine, At Least He Didn’t Try Snakes On A Plane

The fish pants smuggler will face a $77,000 fine for the nefarious deed of stuffing bags full of live fish down his pants.

Still, it’s likely he’s better off than if he’d tried smuggling snakes on a plane…

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, exotic animal smuggling can net some big money. So big that one man attempted to smuggle 247 animals on an airplane.

So what exactly was the fish pants smuggler up to? He tried to smuggle seven cichlids onto an airplane by hiding them in plastic bags filled with water. The airplane trip would have taken him from Vietnam into New Zealand.

But the plot of the fish pants smuggler met a messy end when his trousers began to became noticeably…leaky. And not in an “I’m an old man” excuse type of way. The smuggler attempted to claim he was carrying water because he was very thirsty.

Airport officials then arrested him. For his crimes of exotic animals smuggling the smuggler will pay over $77,000 USD.

So why is the fish pants smuggler getting such a high fine? Ministry of Primary Industries spokesman Craig Hughes explains:

“This appears to be a deliberate attempt to smuggle fish into the country without any consideration of the biosecurity risk involved. That’s something we take very seriously. The fish could have been carrying diseases or have the potential to displace native species.”

Besides the fish pants smuggler, New Zealand officials have also intercepted crabs and other live animals transported in similar fashion.