Anyone watch ‘border control’ themed daytime tv programmes?

[DeluluTaylor]

You know there’s always loads of people trying to bring fried prawns, jellied pigs feet, seeds, uncooked lamb into Australia/ New Zealand shown on these programmes?
Why??
Is there a black market, do they just forget it’s there or do they think it won’t be found? I can never work out if it’s stupidity or hubris.

No judgement on anyone eating those foods, O eat some pretty odd stuff, but there is about a billion signs and the fines are huge!! £2000 for two cold burgers!!
I literally wouldn’t be able to afford the fines, they’d have to fly me home again, all over some dried quail eggs…,

I think they assume it won't be found. New Zealand and Australia are incredibly strict about stuff crossing the border. I'm originally from NZ and I worry when I go back that I might have forgotten to declare something, even though I don't travel with food! The shame would be worse than the fine. Every single passenger goes through the customs/agriculture and fisheries desks and gets grilled about their declaration and whether they might perhaps have been to a farm wearing the same footwear within the last x weeks. I've never been asked anything coming back to the UK. A friend came over a few years back and couldn't believe she didn't see a single representative of the UK government at any point from leaving the plane to the arrivals hall (she could use the passport e-gates). But then of course there are the police with machine guns, so that's, um comforting...

I think it’s because it’s so near to Asia that the majority of people are arriving from there

It amazes me how some people go through customs with loads of drugs - why ? Though some people are quite funny

It always makes me laugh at the people who have absolutely all sorts in their cases 🙈 Like I have never felt the need to travel with so much fresh or dried produce

I honestly think they are bringing "food from home" i mean they are obviously chancing their luck. My favourite though was a women was trying to smuggle drugs under her wig it was hilarious 😀

There is an irish one "stop search seize" where it is almost all cigarette smuggiling they have cases full and pretend it is for personal use

The arrival cards for Aus are in at least 12 languages. I appreciate not everyone is literate in their own language, but there are pictures around special bins showing people what can't be brought in. Also- its often people that actually live in Aus/NZ or have visited MANY times which are the ones trying to smuggle things in!

Yes I've seen the programme.

I watched some of the Australia ones while over there recently. They asked one guy, have you got any food in there. He said “No, no food.” He had 16kg of food in there. Including raw meat, a net of onions, dried fruit, dried noodles and god knows what else.

Oh I saw that one - the customs officers thought her hair was too high!!!! 😂😂😂

she had shit loads of class As under it 😂

But I kind of get drug smuggling as the pay for the drugs is worth the risk of getting caught. It would not be worth the risk for some onions!

I mean she was brazen about it 😂

I think it’s cultural differences - the people with all the pickles etc are always so aghast - I think they think they’d never get caught

and can never understand why they don’t get to keep the food if they pay the fine

i seem to remember she confessed when cornered

I would not have noticed it

Yes, it amazes us why people try with fines so large. Mostly students at Australian universities coming from Asia so language isn’t the issue

Because it’s all for the sake of biosecurity.

they aren’t fining people for the fun of it.

The Aussie one is my favourite thing to watch. I looooooove it. The madness of what people bring in. The indignation about having to pay when caught. The incredibly serious tone of the voiceover wanging on about biosecurity. Can't get enough.

The food thing is absolutely food from home. I used to work at Heathrow and there was an incredibly strong smell every week after one particular flight. Dried fish and meat products being brought in.

I suppose people just miss the food they love. I would pay a lot for marmite and marmalade and cheddar if I couldn’t get it where I lived!

They often take the food off them to teach them a lesson not to do it again. Some food is a bio security risk and has to be safely destroyed but some of it could have been legally brought in IF they had declared it.

I once saw a tiny elderly Chinese lady having an absolute tantrum to two very patient customs officers who were trying to explain she wasn't getting the food back. She had snatched some of it off the table whilst screaming at them in Chinese & English and a small tug of war was taking place. So so funny.

I did once have a group of Samoan staff smuggle back some home-cooked food into NZ (including taro cooked in coconut cream). - I went absolutely mad when I found them eating it (heated up in the Microwave!) in the staff kitchen. Was extremely unsympathetic when they all called in sick 2 days later with vomiting & the trots. They absolutely knew it wasn't allowed.

Guilty pleasure these programmes. 😁

You first get the warning on the plane, then you have so many chances to declare / bin it, culminating in an interview at a checkpoint with someone asking you specific questions. Then after that you get a long walk through mirrored passages, a final change to declare, then possinly bag search, sniffer dogs, sometimes xrays. I don't know how anyone could even think they'd slip through.

The people smuggling in food are usually people with Chinese restaurants, market stalls etc. They want to flog their rotten undeclared meats on our streets. I'd do more than fine them.

I’m talking about the people who get caught - busy body!!!

I know

I was talking about the offenders!

Oh I watch these!

It’s when they have a literal whole suitcase full of chicken feet and weird dried herbs with live insects living inside the packaging and unidentified pre-cooked meats etc. Like are they really going to get a whole suitcase full of totally bizarre and banned food through the border?? They’re mad to risk a £2,000 fine for some chicken feet and insect infested herbs 🤢

It’s the amount they have….and they look at the customs officers like they are as surprised as them at what’s is in their suitcase 😂😂

then start a ritual of screeching, wailing and saying they need to find their mums eye operation and how could the customs officers thought be so cruel