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Border bunglers: 10 odd smuggling attempts foiled by US agents

Drugs are just a few of the illegal products – from the exotic to the mundane – that people attempt to sneak across the US-Mexico border everyday. Here are 10 examples of creative ways people tried to sneak something past Customs.

2. Feathered and frozen

Mike Tripp/The News Leader/AP
Nine out of 10 red-bellied woodpeckers say they do not want to be frozen and stuffed in a purse.

  • By Lourdes Medrano Staff writer

X-rays detected several woodpecker carcasses – frozen – in the handbag of a woman on a passenger bus. She told inspectors the birds were intended for medicinal purposes. Some people smuggle the birds because they are thought to be useful in casting love spells. Hummingbirds, gutted and dried out, also are brought in and worn around the neck in a satchel to attract love.

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