NEW Airport Fear Unlocked: Thousands of Spiders Were Found at Customs

We’ve seen some pretty wild flying stories recently, and it seems that things just get MORE and MORE wild.

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Recently a budget airline shut down overnight and left tons of passengers stranded, last year a rat was found stowing away on a flight, and maggots were found in the most disturbing way as they fell from the overhead bin onto passengers below. Steel your stomachs, friends, because there’s ANOTHER story we have to share (if you hate spiders, look away right now).

The Washington Post just recently shared a story that has us shuddering (and some of us trying not to see a reappearance of our breakfast, if we’re being honest) — customs agents in Germany knew something was amiss when they smelled a certain package that was coming through their office. Inside cake boxes that were supposed to be filled with about 15 pounds of chocolate cake, customs agents instead found around 1,500 tarantulas.

©Washington Post

These arachnids were addressed to be shipped from Vietnam to North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. A spokesperson for the Cologne Main Customs Office in Germany confirmed that the majority of the spiders were alive when found, and were placed in professional care. While we’re not fans of spiders, we do feel bad that some of these creatures.

©Washington Post

The person responsible for shipping the contents about three weeks ago is now under investigation. Animals of any kind must be declared to customs, and import duties have to be paid for packages sent from a non-E.U. member state, so needless to say, that individual is in a lot of trouble. As it turns out, adult tarantulas are traded online for hundreds of dollars in Germany, and back in November, a 28-year-old South Korean man was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle hundreds of tarantulas, centipedes, and bullet ants out of Peru.

The only spider we’d like to see on our plane

Jens Ahland, a spokesperson for the Cologne Main Customs Office, had the following to say about the discovery, “My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the world, but the discovery of around 1,500 small plastic containers containing young tarantulas in this package left even the most experienced among them speechless.”