Man arrested with a zoo in his suitcase

A first-class passenger has been arrested at a Thai airport after being found carrying suitcases filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.

The man, a 36-year-old United Arab Emirates citizen, was waiting to check in for his flight at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport when he was apprehended by undercover anti-trafficking officers who had been monitoring him since his black-market purchase of the rare and endangered animals, according to the Freeland Foundation, an anti-trafficking group based in Thailand.

When authorities opened the suitcases, the animals yawned, said Steven Galster, director of Freeland, who was present during the arrest. There were two leopards, two panthers, an Asiatic black bear and two macaque monkeys – all about the size of puppies. "It looked like they had sedated the animals and had them in flat cages so they couldn't move around much," Galster said. Some of the animals had been placed inside canisters with air holes.

My parents used to fly down to Florida with some weird stuff in the luggage - a roast chicken, a kosher salami, maybe some herring. Oh yeah it must have really smelled great. But carry seven live animals in your luggage. What did that smell like? Especially after the animals begin to relieve themselves.

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