TSA Stops Woman with Python Stashed Inside External Hard Drive

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees at Miami International Airport thwarted a woman’s attempt to bring a snake on a plane on Sunday when they confiscated her python inside her baggage.

The TSA employees spotted the Ball python, a non-venomous snake, in the woman’s checked luggage before she boarded a flight from Miami to Barbados, the Daily Mail reported.

TSA spokesperson Sari Koshetz said that officials confiscated the slithery contraband after an officer found the snake “artfully concealed inside the electronics of a hard drive” stashed inside checked luggage on its way to Barbados.

The TSA luggage scanner revealed “an organic mass” inside the bag during security screening, prompting officials to bring in a bomb expert to inspect the baggage. The expert found the live snake curled up inside a nylon stocking near the hard drive.

“While this mass inside the electronic device was obviously not an imminent terrorist threat to the traveling public, the kind we are always on high alert to, the interception did prevent a possible wildlife threat on an aircraft,” Koshetz said.

The woman received a fine for attempting to bring the reptile on board an aircraft, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services confiscated the snake. Both the woman and the snake did not board the plane.

This is not the first time a passenger attempted to sneak a snake onto a plane in the United States.

TSA employees at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport pulled aside a woman going through a checkpoint several years ago for concealing a snake in her bra.