German caught with heroin at CKS airport

Discussion Open Forum
21

Do you seriously have the forethought to do this? That’s incroyable.

I have not been searched in Asia as far as I know. Too dense to notice any chalk marks. Heading back to Canada a few years back, carrying a massive suitcase full of intricately wrapped ceramic thingies, I thought a guy in LA was gonna make me open each one when he singled me out of line. He sniffed my apprehension and I explained why (i really didn’t want to unwrap it all) and he took a quick look in my carry on and passed me thru in that grand American style.

Canada sucks to get into. Even for Canadians. Man, those Custom guys are hard-ons. The girls are even worse.

But this guy that got nailed here. :s What a waste of skin.

22

I can’t recall ever having had my luggage searched in Asia, either, and am the last person who would ever warrant being subjected to any kind of search. However, in my 20s, when I was travelling around Europe with a Chinese girl, I was singled out for close attention and thorough searches on more than one occasion.

For example, when we disembarked from the ferry at Harwich, returning from Holland, I was the only person picked out from the entire boatload of passengers to have my luggage inspected, and the fat-bastard customs officer went through it with a fine toothcomb, causing us to miss the last train back to London. As I was probably the most respectable and smartly dressed person on that boat, having shared the voyage with a large assortment of punks, football hooligans, crackheads and drunken louts who all waltzed through customs unassailed, I was absolutely furious about being targeted for such treatment. I could only presume it was my being accompanied by an “Asian moll” (who was actually a pretty 20-year-old Chinese-Malaysian law student) that put me in the category of suspicious persons who might be smuggling drugs.

A similar thing happened at Genoa, when we were on our way to board the ferry to Sardinia. We had just entered the port area when a policeman accosted us, ordered us to follow him into his office, and spent an hour searching my luggage minutely (opening every container, sniffing the toothpaste, and all that kind of stuff). Fortunately, I wasn’t subjected to a body search, though I was quite expecting it. And the same as at Harwich, my girlfriend was totally ignored and her bags not even glanced at.

Also, when we were on another ferry from Sicily to Tunisia, the immigration officials who were checking passengers’ passports as we boarded became suddenly animated when they saw me and the girl, took us aside, asked lots of questions, and spent ages poring over my passport (but not hers), muttering together, and copying down details of all the entry and exit stamps in it – but at least they didn’t lead me away and put me through another search.

I wonder if it was the Chinese companion that rendered me such an object of suspicion? Or perhaps the girl in combination with travelling by boat? (I take boats whenever I can instead of flying, which I hate – my first journey from London to Taiwan was made entirely without my getting on a plane). Has anyone else here had similar experiences when travelling with a Chinese or other Asian partner in dear old Europe?

23

I’ve never had any problems from customs while traveling in Europe with my wife. (My passport is U.S., hers is ROC.) For that matter, the closest I’ve ever come to being searched in scores and scores of border crossings in Asia and elsewhere was once I was asked to open a zipper on my backpack. That was in Taiwan eight years ago, on the day Lee Teng-hui was inaugurated for his first popularly elected term in office. Even then, the customs official didn’t actually bother to look inside the backpack or ask me to open any of my suitcases.

24

Best customs story I’ve ever heard. Happened to an ex-girlfriend of mine.

Two young, western, expat girls returning boarding school in India after summer holidays. Customs officer is being smart and starts going through their bags. Pulls out a long cylindrical object on the end of a string and proceeds to hold it up, swing it about and look at it in utter puzzlement. Before he could figure out what it was, one of his colleagues runs up to him and whispers in his ear: “It’s a tampon.” Needless to say he was several different shades of red with embarassment, threw their belongings back in the back and rushed the two girls through. :laughing:

Enjoy,
CK

25

Maybe I should start carrying tampons in my carryon bag in the event that I get searched.

26

I’ve been home to Canada with my Taiwanese husband three times and three times I’ve been searched…what’s up with that?!

27

I think you’ve been watching too much AbFab. :wink:[/quote]

ABSOLUTELY DEAR!!!

28

For those of you wondering if you were searched because you were with someone Asian, I can pretty well guarantee you were. I have crossed many borders, and have only been stopped, questioned, or searched when I was with a black man or a Latino. The first few times it happened (in Europe) I was absolutely shocked and couldn’t believe that people in a developed country could be so racist. I’m used to it now. I guess governments all believe that mixed-race couples are up to no good. Moral of the story: if you’re smuggling anything, don’t travel with anyone black, Asian, or Latin.

29

Or don’t go to the US. They’ll search your carry-on, thoroughly, while you are still crying about leaving your family again (literally tears pouring down the face), and treat you like crap.

30

Travelling through East and Southern Africa, in the good old days, when everyone was exchanging currency on the black market, made for amusing times at border crossings.

You’d show up at some dusty, sleepy frontier post and the border guards/customs guys would turn out all your stuff onto the ground, and lesiurely go through it. It was all very good natured, with ciagarettes offered, and cups of tea. They knew you had undeclared money, you knew that they knew there was a stash of cash somewhere; the cat-and-mouse game was to find it.

They’d open letters, unfold clothes, poke around the toilet kit, flip through books page by page, scratch their heads, laugh, smoke a cigarette and then have another go. No one was ever in a hurry. You’d patiently sit in the sun, drink chai if it was on offer, and chat with the soldiers. In the end they’d get fed up and begrudgingly let you and you undiscovered cash go.

My trick was to rubber band my cash around the stays of my internal frame back pack. Other people used the crown of their caps, or carefully made incisions in the lumbar pads of their packs and stuffed money there. In the end, I seriously doubt that putting every budget back packer through the same routine was hugely profitable for the border guys. To be sure, they’d have pocketed anything they found, but after a while you realized that the ritual in itself was the only diversion to a very tedious assignment manning a border post in the sun baked middle of no where.

But then again, there were the less convivial times, when 13 year old war- orphan soliders, chewing narcotic twigs, would level kalashnikovs at you, demand your passport, and gaze at the writing upside down, through doped out bloodshot eyes that still held a hint of youthful innocent curiosity. Sometimes you’d get a shy smile as they passed back your papers, other times they’d nick something ridiculous like an old ball point pen, an airmail envelope, or a half used tube of toothpaste. And you’d wonder, always, if you’d get through the shake down, or if you’d get popped - on the spot. There were always stories, of recent vintage, on the travellers grapevine, of gruesome endings to chance encounters with soilders and police.

31

Horseshit. I’ve travelled with Asians and never been searched. What, just because you are black and stopped by customs, so that makes the customs people racist?

32

I think that baba was referring to inter-racial couples in general as opposed to just white people traveling with any other particular race. It seems that baba is white so therefore stated it colloquially and not meaning anything by it.

Would that be right ba?

33

Do you seriously have the forethought to do this? That’s incroyable.

[/quote]

Stand around 3 hours waiting for your bags to be searched while the customs officers stand around waiting for you to offer a bribe to be let through and you’ll remember.

34

I agree with Flicka. . . in the US. Racial profiling is very controversial, may be deemed a civil rights violation for which one can sue and recover damages, and we all know how americans like to sue. But in the US customs or other officers may consider other factors, such as if one paid cash for ones ticket (which seems perfectly benign) or perhaps country of origin or destination (which may basically amount to racial profiling), or clothing, hair, mannerisms, etc. I don’t think the lines are clear but I’m certain they may not search solely based on race, and I believe most searches in the US are random.

Of course that’s the US, which is fairly uptight about discrimination. Other countries may have looser standards and some probably allow searches on any grounds.

35

I am white and the only times I have been searched or hassled were in the U.S. And I don’t know what the hell I did to deserve it, and it doesn’t matter which airport i am in, those bastards go through everything.

36

I fly through JFK direct from Taipei once or twice a year and, without fail, I always get approached by the officers at the baggage claim. Always put it down to the fact that they probably had a quota for each flight and that I was one of the few that they knew they wouldn’t have trouble communicating with. Guess it might look pretty strange, one big white guy on a flight full of Taiwanese.

One time they asked me for proof that I was living and working in Taiwan, so I showed the guy my ARC. His reaction: this looks as fake as fake could be. :cry: Fortunately the exit/entry stamps in my passport did provoke the same reaction!

CK

37

From today’s China Post

At the bottom there is a little bit about another bloke smuggling heroin -

[quote] Lee risked his own life by concealing 97 grams of heroin in three condoms and inserting them into his anus. Lee could have lost his life if the condoms ruptured as heroin is absorbed by the body system.

The concealed heroin came out after Lee was asked to jump and squat at the customs office.[/quote]

It just came out?! How terrible! People, please be careful where you jump and squat. You never know what might happen.

38

Horseshit. I’ve travelled with Asians and never been searched. What, just because you are black and stopped by customs, so that makes the customs people racist?[/quote]
Why is this horseshit? My first time in Europe, backpacking, it got so that I could tell, every single time, who would be questioned. The immigration authorities questioned black people and people with darker skin. Unfailingly, every single time. They only questioned white people in two circumstances: they were with a black or Latino person, or they looked extremely poor. This was so obvious that I couldn’t help thinking they were racist. Again, I do not mean that it was slightly more likely that a certain group would be searched, I mean that it was inevitable.

39

Offer me all the money you want - I wouldn’t do it and it’s STUPID in any case.

40

Offer me all the money you want - I wouldn’t do it and it’s STUPID in any case.[/quote]

Yes, it’s stupid but I can understand why some people would be willing to do something stupid if the amount earned was large enough. However, for such a little amount that the German was suppose to get, that makes no sense at all.