Passenger at MIA tries to smuggle snake to Barbados

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at Miami International Airport stopped a woman on her way to Barbados attempting to sneak a Python on a plane on Sunday.

TSA spokesperson Sari Koshetz said the reptile was “artfully concealed inside the electronics of a hard drive” in a bag checked in for the flight to Grantley Adams International Airport.

“Upon the TSA officer’s discovery of the organic mass, one of our TSA bomb experts was called into the baggage screening room to investigate the innards of the hard drive and that is when he discovered the mass was a live snake,” Koshetz added.

“While this mass inside the electronic device was obviously not an imminent terrorist threat to the travelling public, the interception did prevent a possible wildlife threat on an aircraft. Animals of many species have been known to escape and chew through wires with fatal results.”

The United States Fish and Wildlife Services was notified of the discovery and took the young Ball Python and fined the unnamed passenger.