Local Customs and Border Patrol agents discover all sorts of illegal or prohibited items concealed by passengers, including cocaine in honey jars, guavas in purses, peppers in suitcases and opium in shampoo bottles.

And now raw, black chickens.

Customs and Border Patrol at Dulles International Airport seized 20 small raw chickens April 22 from a Vietnamese passenger, the agency announced Thursday. The chickens, a dark-bluish-gray with blackened skin and feet, were stored in two bags in a cooler. They were fully intact but defeathered.

Raw poultry from regions where avian influenza and other diseases thrive are not allowed into the U.S. without a permit. The chickens, known as Chinese Silkies, were incinerated.

“Highly pathogenic avian influenza and Exotic Newcastle diseases are serious threats, which, if introduced into the U.S., could adversely affect our nation’s poultry industry and hurt our international trade,” Christopher Hess, CBP port director for the Port of Washington, said in a news release. “Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists are front line protectors of America’s agriculture industries and they take their job very seriously.”

Washington Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2013/05/a-seizure-most-fowl-a...