SNIFFING OUT CONTRABAND IN DISGUISE

        It is amazing how contraband can be smuggled into a country, be it by road, rail or flight. As custom officials attend more courses and briefings to get updated, the “smuggler” simply creates more ingenious ways to transport contraband. Gone are the days when drugs were hidden in special compartments in luggage and cars, or strapped to human bodies, these techniques are so yesterday. 

             Custom officials and their K9 buddies have become more "gifted" in sniffing out smugglers and drug mules. Drug mules can be paid, blackmailed, coerced or mislead into carrying contraband. I used to think that being tricked into being a drug mule was really stupid. But after watching some documentaries on the movement of contraband, being mislead to smuggle by a friend or love interest is actually quite a possibility. Someone says, “hey my bag’s full, mind carrying this souvenir for me.” Well, you saw your friend (although I wouldn’t call him/her a friend in this case) actually buy that souvenir together with you, and you just say “Yes” without thinking twice. Hell, how could you have known that the souvenir could be hollowed out and contraband stuffed inside? 

Never carry anything for anyone, not even a fruit and here’s why:

        Water melon as carriers? Who does not love a water melon? In Malaysia where the daily temperatures are 33 degrees daily, cold water melons from the fridge are heavenly – a real naturally sweet quencher. I can slurp a few slices after a brisk walk in the mornings. 

So when is a water melon NOT a water melon. WHEN IT IS LIKE THIS,

and what is inside?

           Oh wow, a dug out water melon with marijuana filled to the brim. Not ONE melon but a truck load of them.

 Someone sure made a lot of water melon smoothies, I hope they didn’t get diarrhoea.

How about bank notes inside dug-out BISCUITS,

Actually, the biscuits were not dug out as they would have crumbled. The biscuits were baked specifically with hollows in the centre, precisely measured to fit in the precious packed rolled-up cash. And then packed in similar wrappers of a popular biscuit brand. 

 or bank notes in PEANUTS?

 And this final disguise takes the cake … or more accurately the LOG. 

Hundreds of undeclared cigarette packs inside dug-out logs. 

   Cigarette packs were cleverly  assembled into cylindrical cartons.

          I am not a logger. I cannot imagine the amount of effort to dig out these logs. I rather dig out the water melons, at least all I need is a large spoon and I can sit down quite comfortably scooping out the insides. But, one ain't gonna get a hollow log done with a spoon, however large. Some heavy machinery is needed here for sure. But with the unpaid import tax for these cigarettes, it seems practical to invest in machinery to bore hollows in logs. 
          
        It is also ingenious how they strung the cigarettes in large drum-like packs to fit so snugly inside the logs. And then just yank them out like beads on a necklace, a Cartier necklace no doubt, calculating the street value of the contraband.

        Being simple-minded me, I would have just stuffed the hollows and then crawl in to get them out or invented a spade to dig them out. But then, I am not a smuggler, just a blogger.    

 NECESSITY IS TRUELY THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

These smugglers are NOT STUPID. Their imagination is surely NOT impoverished. I would dare say they are innovators. If these people had been put on the right paths and had cemented their minds together for the greater GOOD of MANKIND, I wonder what beneficial contributions they could have given us? WHO KNOWS?