This is the on-the-hop moment customs officials discover a deadly cargo of one of the world’s deadliest animals being carried in a passenger’s luggage.
Toxins secreted by the tiny poison dart frogs are so lethal they could kill 10 people within minutes just by touching them.
Horrified customs police in Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport in western China, found a haul of them packed in food containers inside an incoming passenger’s luggage.
Each two-inch long frog as packed in an individual container with a wet towel for moisture and a colony of ants for food.
Skin-crawling video clips from 12th February shows the cops wearing surgical gloves to examine the frogs in their sealed packaging as the slightest touch can mean certain death.
It is uncertain where the passenger trafficking the frogs had arrived from, but they are native to South American rainforest where Amazon tribes use their poison on blow darts.
Customs officials have not said what they think the frogs were being smuggled for but some local media reported they might have been heading for traditional medical preparations.
Chemicals found in poison dart frog toxins have been used to create a painkiller 200 times more effective than morphine.
But trials showed that the effective dose is so close to the lethal dose it was too dangerous to use.
Once the poison enters the body, it will paralyse muscles and respiratory systems and causing an agonising death within minutes.
China’s bio safety laws state: “It is forbidden to carry or send live animals and plants into the country without authorisation.”
Offenders if found guilty can be fined up to CNY 250,000 (GBP 27,500).
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below. Story By: Clive Goodman, Sub-Editor: Simona Kitanovska, Agency: AsiaWire Report
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