More than 300 smuggled tarantulas, scorpions and giant cockroaches seized from luggage in Colombia
Hundreds of Colombian tarantulas, giant cockroaches and scorpions that were crammed into a suitcase and illegally bound for Europe were seized last week by authorities at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia.
Airport police spotted the living cargo in luggage belonging to two German citizens who were leaving the country, and they alerted the Ministry of Environment, agency representatives said in a statement on Dec. 2.
Authorities then confiscated more than 300 animals in 210 plastic containers that the travelers had stored between rolls of film. The tubs held 232 spiders — trapdoor spiders and tarantulas — 67 giant cockroaches, a scorpion with seven young, and nine spider eggs, according to the statement. Though the German citizens claimed that they were transporting the arthropods to Germany for research, they did not have the proper authorization for removing the animals from the country, ministry officials said.
Investigators determined that the smuggled arthropods had been collected in the northeast of Bogotá in Boyacá, in the municipality of San Luis de Gaceno. The illicit cargo included individuals in the scorpion family Buthidae; the giant cockroach family Blaberidae; and the spider families Barychelidae (trapdoor spiders) and Theraphosidae (tarantulas).
https://www.livescience.com/smuggled-scorpions-roaches-scorpions-seized-colombia
Officials found giant cockroaches in the Blaberidae family among the smuggled arthropods
(Image credit: Colombia Department of Environment)
Tarantulas were among the over 300 living arthropods that authorities recently confiscated at Colombia's El Dorado International Airport.
(Image credit: Colombia Department of Environment)
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