A man was busted trying to smuggle hundreds of tarantulas and centipedes out of Peru by affixing them to his body.
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The 28-year-old citizen of South Korea was caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants, all of which were inside Ziploc bags, reinforced with tape and camouflaged in two bands attached to his person, Peru’s National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) said in a press release.
The unidentified wannabe smuggler was headed to South Korea with a stopover in France on Nov. 8 when customs authorities at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima observed that his stomach area looked swollen, according to the wildlife agency.
He was asked to lift his shirt which revealed two belts adorned with the camouflaged bags containing the creepy-crawlers.
SERFOR specialists recovered 35 adult tarantulas, described as the size of a human hand, and 285 juvenile tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants, all contained in smaller plastic containers.
The specimens found on the man were native to the Peruvian Amazon and the tarantulas are on the nation’s endangered species list, Walter Silva, a wildlife specialist at SERFOR, said in a statement.
“They were all illegally extracted and are part of the illegal wildlife trafficking that moves millions of dollars in the world,” he explained.
The agency believes they were extracted from Madre de Dios, a biodiverse region in southeastern Peru bordering Brazil and Bolovia and which is almost entirely low-lying Amazon rainforest, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Silva added that smuggling cases like these are common around Christmas, when traffickers can set the animals’ prices higher when sold as pets or to collectors.
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The man was arrested, and the Environmental Prosecutor’s Officeopened an investigation into the case.
According to SERFOR, the critters, which were mistreated by being tightly stored and wrapped together, are now safe.