Buzz
With approximately 43,000 travelers arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York every day, it has become the largest international airport in the United States. At Terminal 4 alone, nearly 1000 pieces of luggage await processing every hour, and of course, many items among them are deemed ineligible for entry, including over 54 kg of illicit food seized and various others. So have you ever wondered, what happens to those confiscated items, and how are they dealt with?
If you arrived at the airport back in the 90s, bringing something into the US would have been much easier than it is now. But since the events of 9/11, everything has changed. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began to form with the mission of more rigorously inspecting the items that travelers bring in to help protect the US from potential threats.
Overall, CBP carries out its responsibility of preventing products that could harm public health, the safety of citizens, or items that could negatively impact the environment. Plant-based foods harming the nation's interests are also targeted. Typically, travelers encounter two types of CBP officers at airports: officers and agricultural specialists. Their job entails searching, seizing, and disposing of millions of illegal items each year. This is a significant and vital task, sometimes requiring the assistance of working dogs, such as Belgian Shepherd Canine Spike.
According to Officer Steve Robinson, who shares about his dog, 'Canine is 8 years old, and I'm its first owner. Canine has been trained to detect drugs, and together we've discovered and seized over 400 different drug smuggling cases.'
After confiscation, prohibited substances are taken for incineration. Naturally, the locations of these incinerators must be kept secret due to national security concerns. Although when mentioning items not allowed into the US, most people immediately think of contraband, in reality, drugs are not the most commonly seized item; it's actually food products.
When a traveler arrives in the US, they are required to declare the food items they are carrying or face fines of up to $1000 for the first offense. The reason is not that officials want to seize food for personal consumption but rather to eliminate the risk of pests or diseases from foodstuffs that could impact US agriculture. And that's when agricultural specialists like Ginger Perrone carry out their duties.
But at JFK Airport, which welcomes 34 million passengers annually, inspecting every piece of luggage is impractical and labor-intensive. Thus, once again, working dogs are brought in to assist. Like Canine, Beagle dog Biscuit has been specially trained, but instead of focusing on contraband, it leans more towards food. These dogs undergo regular training to enhance their skills. Initially, a dog may only detect 5 scents, but over time, this number can increase to 150. Beagles are highly skilled at scent detection, with an accuracy rate of up to 90%. Their noses are 1000 times more sensitive than humans', and they demonstrate this ability every day at the airport.
If Biscuit signals and stops at a passenger's luggage, it will be taken to agricultural specialists for examination. If anything illegal is found, it will be confiscated and stored in containers, which could include grape leaves, sausages, crops, etc. The experts will then label them and decide whether to grind or incinerate them.
Next, in the grinding room, food items, usually fruits and vegetables, will be crushed into small pieces to check for any pathogens before disposal. If an unusual organism is found in the food, it will be sent to the US Department of Agriculture for further research.
According to BI
