A pair of Mongolian women tried to smuggle a hefty supply of horsemeat and horse genitals from their home country into the U.S., officials said on Thursday.
The duo arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport on Jan. 29, when customs officers referred them for a routine agriculture examination, U.S. Customs and Border protection officials said in a statement. During the inspection, agriculture specialists found that the women were carrying 42 pounds of horse and other ruminant meat, 13 pounds of horse genitals and three liters of yak milk — all hidden inside juice boxes.
One of the women claimed the genitals were needed for medicinal purposes.
Horsemeat is prohibited from entering the U.S. if it’s not accompanied by an official government horsemeat certification from the country it came from, according to the statement.
Horsemeat from Mongolia, specifically, is forbidden on concerns of introducing diseases to U.S. livestock industries.
“Customs and Border Protection takes no pleasure in seizing and destroying travelers’ food products,” Wayne Biondi, Customs and Border Patrol Port Director for the Area Port of Washington Dulles, said in the statement. “We’re in the business of protecting America’s agriculture industries, like the livestock industry, from the potential introduction of animal diseases posed by these unpermitted food products.”
All of the meat was incinerated.
Neither woman faced criminal charges and both were released to continue their visit.
This isn’t the first time officials made odd discoveries inside travelers’ baggage at Washington Dulles, officials said in the statement. They’ve also found charred full monkeys, voodoo ceremony tools, cocaine concealed inside the cavity of fully-cooked chickens, live sea horses and giant African land snails.