Australian customs find snakes in garden gnomes

Customs and Quarantine officers have broken a smuggling racket in which snakes and lizards were sent as gifts, concealed in the hollow spaces of pottery figurines and garden gnomes.

Garden gnomes sent to an address in Blacktown were seized on June 10 when a customs officer saw snakes moving in the package, a customs spokesman said.

Two snakes and three lizards were found inside the gnomes at the Australia Post Gateway Facility at Clyde in Sydney's west.



The package was resealed and the reptiles, sent from Britain, were euthanased because of quarantine concerns.

A day later, an X-ray machine found five snakes and five lizards in a set of pottery ornaments sent from a different address in Britain. They were also euthanased.

"Why the hell would someone want to smuggle coal to Newcastle?" a Quarantine spokesman said.