What’s that under your hat?

News last week that little blue penguins in Hawke’s Bay are becoming the suspected target of animal smugglers should really come as no surprise. Animal poaching has become a multimilliondollar business in the last few decades, especially as more and more species are being driven to the edge of extinction and hence have more valuable on the black market.

And the efforts and audacity of some people to try to smuggle wildlife through airport customs never ceases to amaze me – although I must admit a man’s attempt in the last few days to hide a leopard in his hand luggage did strain credibility.

The man, who had landed at Chennai in India on a flight from Bangkok, aroused suspicion when the month-old leopard cub began emitting shrill distressed noises from within his bag – hardly surprising response after being cooped up in an overhead locker for the duration of a long flight.

The passenger was subsequently arrested and is suspected of being part of an international wildlifepoaching ring. Leopard numbers in Asia are in severe decline because of habitat loss, poaching and an illegal trade in skins. Although why this man chose to smuggle a leopard to India, which already has indigenous leopards, is a mystery.

However, he is far from being the only audacious airline passenger. Others have also got up to some strange monkey business – in some cases literally.

A man travelling from Lima in Peru to New York shocked passengers on his final domestic leg from Miami when a marmoset crawled out from under his headwear. New York authorities seized the monkey but were surprised the animal had previously escaped detection in Lima and Florida.

Another ingenious but unsuccessful attempt to smuggle a monkey into the United States happened back in 2007 when a 28-year-old woman arriving from Thailand attempted to hide a rhesus monkey under her dress by pretending she was pregnant.

Although the animal was sedated, the customs officials spotted this false pregnancy and the woman was convicted of violating the Endangered Species Act. She also presumably failed to qualify for maternity leave.

Some passengers are so over-confident they don’t stick to just one illegal animal in their belongings.

In 2002, Robert Cusack gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘‘human zoo’’. Initially, he aroused suspicion when a bird of paradise flew out of his luggage on his arrival in Los Angeles from Thailand. Unsurprisingly, Customs officials decided to give him closer attention and asked him if had anything else to declare. To their surprise he admitted to having some monkeys in his trousers.

But, wait, there’s more – customs officials discovered he had two pygmy slow lorises in his underwear, which left them even more wide-eyed than the lorises. They also found 50 rare orchids in his luggage.

But the prize for the most daring attempt to hoodwink Customs officials occurred about a decade ago at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport.

Two German nationals were arrested trying to get the older woman’s 91-year-old dead husband on to a plane to return him to Berlin. Imagine!

The corpse had been put in a wheelchair and he was wearing sunglasses. The women insisted they thought the man was just asleep but an autopsy found he had been dead for about 12 hours when he arrived at the airport. The women were arrested on suspicion of failing to notify a death but the charge was later dropped for lack of evidence.

But for some fellow travellers the incident brought to mind the Lennon/McCartney hit I’m Only Sleeping.