• The passenger, coming from Lima via Paris, tried to pass the Customs control at the Bilbao airport wearing the jacket and carrying 10,900 euros without declaring

• The traveler stated that he had hunted it himself in the Amazon

July 12, 2024.- Officials from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, together with civil guards from the Tax and Border Section of the Bilbao airport, have intervened last month June a giant anaconda skin jacket worn by a passenger in the airport arrivals hall.

The investigators of the Customs Surveillance Service and the Civil Guard who act as the State Fiscal Guard, under the functional dependence of the Regional Customs and II.EE Unit. of the AEAT in the Basque Country, carry out, among other actions, daily inspections of passengers and luggage according to preventive risk criteria at the Bilbao airport.

The agents carried out the review and inspection of the luggage carried by a traveler from Peru via Paris, observing that he was carrying 10,900 euros in cash, as well as that he was wearing an apparently snakeskin jacket.

When asked if he had the declaration of movements of means of payment (E1) of the money, and about the type of material of the garment he was wearing, the traveler said that he did not have the aforementioned mandatory declaration and that the jacket was made with the skin of a giant anaconda that he himself would have hunted with a harpoon in the Amazon jungle.

The passenger's response and the suspicion of an attempt to evade customs control alerted SVA agents and civil guards, so an immediate consultation was made with the Official Service for Inspection, Surveillance and Regulation of Exports (Soivre).

The Soivre confirmed that it was a specimen belonging to the 'Eunectes murinus' family protected according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), so the garment was seized.

The author remains under investigation for an alleged crime against flora and fauna, and the capital he was carrying in cash has also been seized. The proceedings have been delivered to the Bilbao Guard Court.