Customs Is Cracking Down on Forbidden Fruits

Sherlock and Dr. Watson are waiting at the airport in San Francisco. Jackpot and Sam are at JFK, and Becky and Daisy Mae are expecting you at LAX. John Henry is in Miami, and Randy waits in Seattle.

If you’re returning from a trip abroad to any one of these airports, chances are good that these special teams will check your bags carefully.

They’re part of the “beagle brigade,” a group of specially trained dogs dressed in bright green jackets, strategically placed at airports around the United States.

No, they’re not looking for drugs. Beagle Brigade is the federal government’s first nationwide use of passively trained detector dogs, looking for prohibited meat and fruit in the baggage of overseas travelers.

Most tourists don’t realize it until it’s too late, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture enforces strict regulations on the importation of most foreign meats, fruits and vegetables.

It Only Takes One

“We worry a lot about this,” says Bonnie Aikman, spokesman for the USDA. “For example,” she says, “just one orange carried by an incoming passenger may have introduced the Mediterranean fruit fly to California in 1980. More than $100 million was spent by the USDA and the state of California before the fly was eradicated.

“We’re particularly concerned about fresh fruit, meats, vegetables, plants in soil and pet birds.”

And the dogs are there to assist the USDA inspectors for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

In 1985 APHIS inspectors checked 261,538 incoming planes. More than a million separate interceptions of illegal agricultural products were made.

“A lot of people think you can bring back a canned ham. But you can’t unless the can says specifically that it’s shelf stable without refrigeration. If it doesn’t, you can’t do it.”

Over the years, APHIS inspectors have been able to target certain airlines and flights as having a high likelihood of illegal goods.

Philippine Airlines flights from Manila record a high number of interceptions of meat and fresh fruit. TACA, the Costa Rican airline, also scores high in this department. And Lufthansa’s daily arrivals from Frankfurt are affectionately known by inspectors as the sausage flights.

Salami smugglers, beware: “These dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell,” says Dave Thompson, assistant officer in charge of the USDA in Los Angeles. The dogs are trained for nine weeks at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex., followed by field training at airports focusing on beef, pork, mangoes and citrus. “The dogs have a success rate of more than 89%.”

In a typical day, Thompson’s dogs will find chestnuts, sand pears, mangoes, reptile eggs and, of course, salami and sausages.

The dogs find salami packed in empty tea cans, mangoes stuffed into empty cans of olive oil.

One traveler’s indiscretion was easy to see. Her coat was dripping blood. “When we inspected it,” Thompson reports, “we found that she had skinned a rabbit and had stuffed it into the lining of her coat.

“We caught one guy from Yugoslavia who tried to bring in dozens of figs, but instead of giving them to us, he just sat down and ate the whole bag.”

Another traveler was caught with a purse stuffed with mangoes. (Where do all the mangoes go, once confiscated? The USDA puts them into a steam sterilizer at 212 degrees for two hours and then buries them under eight feet of earth.)

And now the USDA is doing more than just confiscating the bad apples. In 1984 the department won approval to levy civil penalties against passengers bringing in prohibited agricultural products.

The fines are $25 or $50. The amounts may seem small, but by next month the government will have collected more than $1.5 million in fines.

How does one know which foods are acceptable? USDA publishes a 17-page booklet. It specifically lists items that can and cannot be brought back. For your copy, write to Travelers’ Tips, USDA-APHIS, 700 Federal Building, Hyattsville, Md. 20782.

But it’s not just agricultural products that get stopped upon arrival back into the United States. More than 700 species of animals and plants are officially listed as endangered or threatened under U.S. law. And with extremely limited exceptions, none can be imported.

Not too long ago a woman deplaning in Los Angeles on a Lufthansa flight was stopped by authorities because she was wearing a leopard-skin coat. She was told that importing the coat is illegal.

The woman had spent thousands of dollars for the coat, and immediately offered to go back on the same aircraft, fly back to Germany and return it. Too late. The coat was confiscated.

A Boston couple, returning to Dallas from Mexico on their way home, had a similar experience. Customs agents asked them what they had bought on their trip abroad. The couple showed the agents their purchases, which included a belt and pair of boots the husband was wearing.

But the boots and belt were made from turtle, an endangered species, and were confiscated.

The woman was angered, and wrote to the government: “It was only after the items were confiscated that we were then handed a brochure telling us what we could and couldn’t bring back,” she wrote. “These are items sold openly to Americans at a high price. . . . We, the uninformed travelers were made to be the criminals. Our possessions were taken, and the profiteers were allowed to continue in business.

“Why,” she asked, “isn’t this information available at international departure areas in the United States?”

“We get letters like this all the time,” says David Klinger, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “People get wildlife products taken from them more often than you think, and the reason for it is due to the incredible amount of endangered species products commonly offered for sale all over the world.”

But what about the point raised by the woman on the lack of information?

“Partly,” Klinger admits, “we’re to blame. We haven’t done a good enough job of getting information to travelers before they go. But ignorance of the law is no excuse. You need to know before you go. There’s not much we can do for you if you’re 5,000 miles away. We can do a lot more if you contact us before you go.”

Some general suggestions: Most crocodile skin is prohibited, as are most products made from lizard skin and all sea turtle products, including anything made from a turtle--jewelry, oil, creams, meat and lotions.

Also, spotted cat coats are illegal to bring back. These include clothing made from snow leopard, jaguar, tiger and ocelot. (A few spotted cats are legal--certain species in China. And the Geoffrey cat, a South American species, is also an exception to the rule.)

Most wild birds, live or dead, as well as any birds originating in Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico or Venezuela are illegal.

Many kinds of large parrots, cockatoos and macaws are also prohibited.

African elephant ivory can enter the United States legally, but Asian elephant ivory is strictly prohibited from import.

“Remember,” Klinger says, “just because you’re buying something in one corner of the world, it doesn’t mean it didn’t come originally from another corner. It gets very complicated, and we can offer no blanket assurances that travelers won’t get questioned. If you’re going to invest heavily in ivory, you’d better do your homework for your own self-protection.”

The USFWS owns warehouses full of this stuff. One warehouse near JFK airport in New York is jammed full of tortoise-shell bracelets, eyeglass frames, guitar picks, crocodilian watch straps, purses, belts, shoes, large turtle shells, meat, cream and stuffed animals.

When something is confiscated, travelers get only a receipt for the confiscated property. Period. Some seized items are loaned to museums and schools for educational purposes, but most of it is destroyed.

If you have any questions, you may write for a free informational pamphlet that details federal wildlife laws. Write to Publications Unit, USFWS, Room 148, Matomic Building, Washington, D.C. 20240. You can also call the USFWS law enforcement district office in Los Angeles: (213) 297-0063.

“The best advice we have for travelers,” Klinger says, “is that if you’re about to make an impulse purchase abroad, think. When in doubt, do without.”

Last but not least, there are prohibited items on U.S. Customs regulations. Other than the obvious illegal products and substances (drugs, guns, undeclared currency above $10,000), customs is on the lookout for counterfeit goods. Many U.S. travelers returning from Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong after buying electronic items have had them confiscated by customs officers.

That fake Rolex watch you bought for $15 on the streets of Bangkok is a no-no. So is the fake IBM personal computer you bought for $500 in Taipei. “It’s not just that we prohibit the importation of commercial quantities of these goods,” says Ed Kittredge, customs spokesman. “Whether it’s one item or 100, we don’t want people trading on someone else’s trademark.”

If it’s the real thing, you can bring it in. “Persons arriving in the United States with a trademark article are allowed an exemption, usually one article of a type bearing a protected trademark.”

Customs publishes a pamphlet called “Know Before You Go.” It’s available free by writing to U.S. Customs Service, P.O. Box 7407, Washington D.C. 20044.