A 23-year-old traveller has been arrested at Tokyo's Haneda Airport after customs officers allegedly found around 200 live lizards hidden in his suitcase, stuffed into 22 pairs of socks.
Discovery at Haneda Airport
Mexican national Daniel Isaac Velasco Baltazar was reportedly arrested on August 8 after flying in from South Korea. Customs officials reportedly opened his luggage and made the grim discovery of 22 pairs of socks packed with reptiles. One of the animals was already dead by the time officers unzipped the case.
Japanese police are said to have been waiting for him after an anonymous tip in late July warned that a Mexican man was planning to smuggle reptiles into the country to sell at a local Japanese reptile exhibition and sales market.
Smuggling Details
Officials reportedly pulled the suspect aside for a manual inspection after landing. During the search, officers noticed an unusual bulge inside a folded T-shirt. Inside the T-shirt, they found the socks stuffed with lizards, Fox News reported.
Among the haul were said to be rare Mexican alligator lizards, also known as arboreal alligator lizards, a protected species covered by international wildlife trade rules under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Motive and Expert Comment
Investigators believe the motive was money, HK WORLD -JAPAN reported. The suspect allegedly told police he bought the lizards in Mexico for as little as $3.50 to $5 each (about £2.70 to £3.90) – but thought he could sell rare specimens in Japan for up to $630 each (about £490), or 100,000 yen.
Security expert Keith Jeffries, vice president of K2 Security Screening Group and a former federal security director at Los Angeles International Airport, told Fox News Digital: “If there’s a market for it, people will attempt to smuggle it.” He added: “We’ve seen this before many times. It happens more frequently than any of us would like.”
