These weren’t just oversize water bottles.
Every 12 months, air-headed bozos across the country attempt to board planes with dangerous, illegal and downright ridiculous objects.
The 12 months 2022 proved a banner one for each intentional and allegedly accidental smuggling incidents within the US, with many sky MacGyvers concocting unusual ways to sneak contraband past the Transportation Security Administration.
In honor of those mile-high morons, the TSA has unveiled a video listing the highest 10 most ridiculous things they confiscated last 12 months. They included drugs in candy bags, firearms hidden in poultry and other insane objects.
Within the words of the federal government organization, what higher method to “shout out to our TSA officers nationwide for shielding the traveling public,” right?
Taste the Rain-blow
A flier put the “high” in “mile high club” after they were busted at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 19 for attempting to pass off narcotics as candy like a drug-trafficking Willy Wonka. Authorities found a complete of 12,000 fentanyl pills hidden inside SweeTARTS, Skittles and Whoppers candy packages.
Upon being discovered, the suspect fled the scene but was later identified. An investigation is reportedly ongoing.
Hair lines
With drug-detecting methods becoming more sophisticated, traffickers have devised creative ways to fly under the radar. In a single hair-raising incident, officers at Idaho’s Boise Airport found drugs hidden inside hair scrunchies, even though it’s unclear when the bust was actually made.
Fowl move
In November, a traveler won the award for the world’s worst Thanksgiving stuffing after attempting to smuggle a plastic-wrapped handgun inside a complete uncooked chicken. The hearth-y poultry seasoning was exposed by officials at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
TSA subsequently put the bozo on the Twitter rotisserie, writing: “There’s a private fowl here. Our officers [at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood] made this very raw find.
“We hate to interrupt it to you but stuffing a firearm in your holiday bird for travel is only a baste of time,” they quipped within the pun-stuffed post.
Gun nut
Perhaps the crown jewel of gastronomic gun-smuggling attempts belongs to a Rhode Island traveler who was busted with a peanut butter-camouflaged firearm at Latest York’s JFK International Airport in December. He had reportedly tried to smuggle a disassembled .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun through security in two jars of Jif.
His nutty scheme backfired after the metal components triggered an alarm on the X-ray machine, after which TSA officials discovered the “extra-crunchy” bread spread. They subsequently notified Port Authority officials, who confiscated the parcel and arrested the person.
First-person shooter
Just in case there weren’t enough guns in video games: TSA officials were astonished after discovering a pistol concealed inside a PlayStation console while examining X-rays at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in December.
“It looked odd — prefer it was missing pieces or there have been components missing,” said lead TSA Officer Theodosia White, who made the shocking discovery. “No circuitry was missing (in the sport). The fan was there, but a gun appeared to be artfully concealed.”
A supervisor subsequently confirmed that the thing was indeed a firearm and law enforcement then questioned the person, who admitted he’d put his piece inside an old PlayStation to move it back to California. Atlanta police subsequently confiscated the weapon.
Cutting-edge technology
In an analogous smuggling scheme in November, a passenger was busted with a knife hidden deep throughout the bowels of his laptop at Virginia’s Richmond International Airport. A TSA officer thought something was awry after spotting what gave the impression to be a knife contained in the flyer’s carry-on luggage. But when officers searched the bag, they couldn’t find the weapon.
In the end, officials realized that the knife was “in the pc” a la “Zoolander.” They disassembled the machine and discovered a double-edged blade taped to the pc’s inner circuitry.
Officers confiscated the knife and allowed the blade-runner to proceed his travels.
An actual gun-slinger
TSA officers grew suspicious after a scanner went off while screening a sling-wearing passenger at Latest York’s Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport. They asked the traveler to remove the solid and put it in a bin, and he then explained it was heavy on account of having metal in it. It turned out, nonetheless, he was not lying about its heft: The sling had a loaded handgun concealed inside like a James Bond movie weapon.
The flier claimed he’d forgotten in regards to the gun, which was situated just inches from his trigger finger.
Electric guitar
Guitar cases are sometimes seen getting used to hide, say, machine guns in noir gangster flicks. Nevertheless, one enterprising flier flipped the script after smuggling three cattle prods in his instrument holder at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC. After making the shocking discovery, TSA allowed him to repack them into his checked luggage.
“Sometimes people get the sensation that they’re being herded through airports, but that is definitely no solution!” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein quipped in a tweet.
Support payment
TSA agents learned that cash generally is a crutch after confiscating a pair of braces filled with soiled money on the airport in El Paso Texas, per the video countdown. Nevertheless, it’s not clear after they made the invention.
Either way, taking away the dough might’ve left this smuggler with out a financial leg to face on.
Bombshell discovery
Probably the most explosive discovery occurred in July when a Milwaukee TSA official identified a bomb-shaped image on an X-ray. The passenger explained that it was a duplicate grenade he’d bought for his son while at an air show in Oshkosh.
Milwaukee County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the checkpoint, where they verified that the explosive was inert.
The grenade was confiscated and the passenger was cited.
