Cheese

[DCLMP]

I know of a case where a US Citizen bought a ham sandwich at the Madrid airport and then boarded a flight to the USA. He forgot all about the ham sandwich in his carry-on luggage until found by US Customs which fined him $300.00. I bet the US Customs dog got a special treat!


-Paul

How did they find the ham sandwich? Sounds like a fake story.

 

[dcassetta]

How did they find the ham sandwich? Sounds like a fake story.

I would guess that the DoA/CBP dog smelled the sandwich and targeted on the bag. It was then searched.

 

[mab2012]

I would guess that the DoA/CBP dog smelled the sandwich and targeted on the bag. It was then searched.

Yup. Not hard for a dog to sniff out meat.

 

[soniam]

I had a narrow miss last summer when we landed in Halifax with some leftover food we'd bought for breakfast that morning. I made a kind of vague declaration about the food we had, but didn't specifically mention the two slices of ham that nobody got around to eating. I knew I had it, but giving a complete itemized list seemed too complicated, and the tiny bit of ham didn't seem important enough to explicitly mention. A dog picked it up at baggage claim. My husband told them we'd mentioned it at immigration, which wasn't strictly true but also wasn't quite a lie. I don't think they believed him, but they just warned us of the fine for failure to declare, which IIRC was several thousand dollars, and of course took the ham.

On another occasion, years ago, we were driving across the border and when I declared my half-eaten sandwich from Subway (which also contained sandwich meat), the agent literally laughed at me. So apparently the importance of this varies depending on the day.

It might depend upon the direction of the border crossing. When we drove from Chile to Argentina, no one asked about much or food. When we went back across, they were making everyone on a bus bring all of their stuff in to scan and tossing any meat/dairy/produce. We were just 3 of us in a car, so they didn’t ask us much. We had a little bit of leftover cheese, bread, lettuce, and tomato that we were going to have as sandwiches on the way. No one asked about it. So who knows

 

[DisneYE]

Update on this,
The packaged cheese I brought onboard in Rome didn't raise any concerns.
I bought more again in Messina (damn you Italians and your awesome cheese) and didn't even raise an eyebrow at customs or at the ship.

 

[anricat]

Update on this,
The packaged cheese I brought onboard in Rome didn't raise any concerns.
I bought more again in Messina (damn you Italians and your awesome cheese) and didn't even raise an eyebrow at customs or at the ship.

Thanks for the update! Enjoy your cheese!

 

[soniam]

Update on this,
The packaged cheese I brought onboard in Rome didn't raise any concerns.
I bought more again in Messina (damn you Italians and your awesome cheese) and didn't even raise an eyebrow at customs or at the ship.

My husband won't be happy to hear this We will be tight on room anyway, but maybe I can find room in the carry-on for some cheese for myself