{"id":351396,"date":"2026-06-15T21:31:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=351396"},"modified":"2026-06-15T21:31:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:01:04","slug":"smuggler-caught-trafficking-150-venomous-scorpions-at-cape-town-airport-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/15\/smuggler-caught-trafficking-150-venomous-scorpions-at-cape-town-airport-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Smuggler caught trafficking ‘150 venomous scorpions’ at Cape Town airport | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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150 individually wrapped scorpions discovered by customs (Picture: South African Police)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a sting within the tail for one would-be smuggler who was caught attempting to sneak 150 live scorpions out of South Africa.<\/p>\n

A 28-year-old man was arrested after an intelligence operation circulated his description before he was intercepted by officers at Cape Town International Airport on Friday.<\/p>\n

His luggage was searched and 150 \u2018live and venomous scorpions\u2019 were discovered stashed between his folded clothes.<\/p>\n

He was arrested under the Nature and Environmental Ordinance Act, after allegedly being in possession of a wild animal. <\/p>\n

Police said the worth of the scorpions is yet to be determined. <\/p>\n

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The person was allegedly attempting to get through airport security in Cape Town (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The deadly critters were transported to a \u2018haven for secure keeping\u2019, police said.<\/p>\n

\u2018He was arrested under the Nature and Environmental Ordinance Act, being in possession of a wild animal,\u2019\u00a0police said in a press release<\/a>, without naming the person. <\/p>\n

Wildlife trafficking stays a serious threat in South Africa, one in all the world\u2019s most biodiverse countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Criminal networks goal iconic species like rhinoceroses and elephants, but additionally lesser-known creatures like pangolins and reptiles, fueling a lucrative global black market.<\/p>\n

The suspect is anticipated to seem in court on Monday.<\/p>\n

It got here after an escaped scorpion\u00a0stung a lady at Logan Airport\u00a0in Boston while she was getting luggage in the bags claim area.<\/p>\n

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Reconstruction of Praearcturus gigas, which once roamed the UK (Picture: Franz Anthony\/Natural History Museum\/Cover Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No less than the creatures weren\u2019t the 1m long Praearcturus gigas equipped with pincers greater than 16cm long which were revealed to have roamed Britain 415million years ago.<\/p>\n

The findings by the Natural History Museum and The University of Manchester, published within the journal Palaeontology, were made possible by studying fossils housed within the museum\u2019s collections for greater than 150 years.<\/p>\n

Researchers used modern analytical techniques and comparisons with newly described fossil species to conclude that Praearcturus was a definite species of scorpion.<\/p>\n

Dr Richard J. Howard, Curator of Fossil Arthropods on the Natural History Museum in London and lead writer of the study, said: \u2018When we expect of giant arthropods, people often picture Carboniferous rainforests with giant millipedes or dragonfly-like insects from later in Earth\u2019s history. But Praearcturus lived no less than 50 million years earlier, well before the evolution of trees, when life on land was only just getting began.<\/p>\n

\u2018Confirming that this animal is a scorpion fundamentally changes our understanding of how and when these creatures evolved to such extraordinary sizes.\u2019<\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Teacher who treated adopted baby son as a \u2018plaything\u2019 guilty of his abuse and murder<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Henry Nowak killer\u2019s \u2018lenient\u2019 21-year jail term sent to the court of appeal<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Fly-tippers turn nature reserve into one in all UK\u2019s largest \u2018waste crime\u2019 sites<\/span><\/p>\n

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150 individually wrapped scorpions discovered by customs (Picture: South African Police) There was a sting within the tail for one would-be smuggler who was caught attempting to sneak 150 live scorpions out of South Africa. A 28-year-old man was arrested after an intelligence operation circulated his description before he was intercepted by officers at Cape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[11637,21953,15112,395,52869,26203,2739,4730,1893,813],"class_list":["post-351396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-airport","tag-cape","tag-caught","tag-news","tag-scorpions","tag-smuggler","tag-town","tag-trafficking","tag-venomous","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351399,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351396\/revisions\/351399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}