Customs target animal smugglers

Border officials have trained their sights on animal smugglers following the discovery of a briefcase on its way into the UK at Gatwick Airport - full of dead pigeons.

A pet Boa Constrictor was in the top 10 of unusual finds by the UK Border Agency

A number of the birds – discovered at the airport last month - had all of their feathers removed, leading to suspicions they may have been on their way to British restaurants.

But a UK Border Agency spokeswoman revealed how officials were left confused by the old pair of boots found alongside them in the case.

The find was the latest in a top 10 of unusual discoveries by the UK Border Agency, as it targets smugglers bringing animals into the country illegally through airports including Stansted and London Luton.

Another of these was a scene that could have come straight from Snakes On A Plane, with a passenger travelling through Heathrow Airport with his pet Boa Constrictor snake wrapped around his leg.

Other finds included more than 40 dried seahorses, destined to be ground up and used as Chinese traditional medicine, on a passenger travelling from Shanghai; 1,000 live spiders, individually boxed in a suitcase checked in by a British man; a total of 26 rare birds of prey stuffed into plastic pipes for a trip from Thailand; and three rare Copes Alligator lizards, smuggled inside a video tape seized at Gatwick.

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