German customs officials seize 1,500 tarantulas smuggled in international spongecake shipment

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German customs authorities recently made a skin-crawling discovery when they found about 1,500 young tarantulas concealed in a shipment of spongecake boxes.

The package, which had arrived at Germany’s Cologne Bonn Airport three weeks ago from Vietnam, weighed more than 15 pounds and had a noticeable smell that tipped off officials, according to a news release from the Cologne customs office.

“My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the world, but the fact that they found around 1,500 small plastic containers containing young tarantulas in this package left even the most experienced among them speechless,” Jens Ahland, spokesperson for the Cologne customs office, said in a statement. 

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German customs officers recently made a skin-crawling discovery when they found around 1,500 young tarantulas concealed in a shipment of spongecake. (Cologne customs)

“An extraordinary seizure for German Customs, even though we are saddened by what some people do to animals purely for profit.”

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Many of the tarantulas did not survive the trip, and the surviving spiders were placed in professional care. Criminal proceedings are underway against the package’s recipient in the Sauerland region of the country, according to the news release.

German customs officers recently made a skin-crawling discovery when they found around 1,500 young tarantulas concealed in a shipment of spongecake. (Cologne customs)

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“Animals of any kind must be declared to customs and import duties paid for parcels from a non-EU member state,” the release noted.

German customs officers recently made a skin-crawling discovery when they found around 1,500 young tarantulas concealed in a shipment of spongecake. (Cologne customs)

Last year, a passenger was busted at Miami International Airport for trying to get onto an airplane with a bag of snakes in the passenger’s pants. The TSA shared images of the reptiles on X at the time, writing that officers in Florida “detected this bag of snakes hidden in a passenger’s pants at a checkpoint.”

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Jens Ahland did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Sophia Compton is a Digital Production Assistant at Fox News Digital. Sophia was previously a business reporter covering finance, energy and tourism and has experience as a TV news producer. She graduated with a journalism degree in 2021 from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.