Cocaine Pumpkins and Cobra Wine Are Just a Few of the Things Found by Canadian Border Guards

Fancy some cocaine pumpkins? How about 362 grams of individually wrapped Turkish opium chocolates? Or 137 grams of uppers in the form of "powdered strawberry drink mix"? Maybe 200 weed brownies is more your thing?

This might sound like the most fucked up potluck dinner of all time, but for the men and women charged with securing Canada's borders, it's all in a day's work. The dedicated agents who control the entry of food into the country are members of an elite squad named the Canadian Border Agency (CBSA). These are their stories.

Every year, thousands of people, knowingly or not, bring illegal goods into the country. Needless to say, that means a lot of drugs, a lot of weird food, and the occasional overlap between the two. Believe it or not, the pumpkins above were stuffed with two kilos of coke and actually seized on Halloween.

The food-based drug vessels above might sound like something from an Elmore Leonard novel but they are all real instances of things seized at Canada's borders. And food isn't just used as a means of sneaking narcotics under the noses of CBSA agent—sometimes the food itself is against the law.

"Unusual seizures often involve animals," CBSA spokesperson Jacqueline Roby told MUNCHIES, citing examples like large feline penises (an aphrodisiac food), bear gallbladders, snake wine, and gazelle legs. And if you think it's just a couple of weird headline-making foods that get intercepted by authorities every year, think again.

"In 2016, the CBSA officers seized 7,074 inadmissible food products in the Quebec region alone," she says. "Many items were unusual, such as a rooster sculpted in a beef horn, chicken legs (including claws), duck neck, and donkey skin gelatine, which looks like a chocolate bar and is used as soup broth."

And the animals aren't always dead, either. Travelers carrying tamed monkeys, ducks, chickens, or rabbits are also an issue. The logic behind seizing and destroying food items is pretty obvious, as contaminants found in animal and plant life can wreak havoc on Canadian agriculture.

"It is important to note that certain foods, plants, and animals (FPA) can transmit diseases," according to Roby. "Mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease, for example, can be transmitted from one animal to another. In the event of contagion, these diseases could have a significant negative impact on Canadian farms and the Canadian economy."

The other major category of seizures is endangered species. "Some products are inadmissible because they belong to species protected under the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) because they are at risk of extinction," she says.

"We also seize products of marine turtle such as turtle meat, turtle-based soups, and turtle leather products (handbags, purses, and belts) as well as traditional medicinal products containing parts or derivatives of endangered species such as tiger, rhinoceros, or any other endangered species."

All of which begs the question: Why would someone want to transport these items through security in the first place? For the CBSA, it's not exactly easy to understand why someone would bring in rhinoceros- or turtle-based foods and remedies or think that it would be legal. Nor is it their job.

"It's hard to speculate on that, really," Roby says, insisting that reading up on the rules is the best thing you can do before bringing home some kind of animal-based virility homebrew and the like. "We encourage travellers to get the right information before travelling back to Canada with food. We encourage them to pay attention to organic products among their goods and to declare any foods, plants, [or] animals to the border services officer."

One of the most bizarre things Roby told me about was bear gallbladders, which can fetch as much as $15,000. In China, thousands of bears are harvested for bile in their gallbladders, which is then used to make wines and teas that supposedly cure hangovers and treat hemorrhoids. The bear trade is a billion dollar black market and, not surprisingly, bear gallbladders have also ended up in the hands of Canada's border guards.

But what happens once these items have been seized by border officials? "Generally speaking, forfeited foods, plants, and animal products are sent to a disposal site for international waste," Roby explains.

"International waste" is defined by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) as all waste, including recyclables, removed from international air and marine conveyances arriving in Canada and any food, plants, animals, and related products entering Canada that do not meet CFIA import requirements.

Those imagining border guards tossing cocaine, rhino parts, and snake wine into a gigantic international dumpster fire will be disappointed. Illegal food is destroyed in a far more civilized manner.

"To dispose of international waste accumulated at border offices and ports of entries, the CBSA arranges transportation of international wastes from the port of entry to a landfill site for international waste in a closed sealed container."

So there you have it: the full life cycle of seized illegal foods you hear about in the news, from search to seizure to disposal.