It wasn’t drugs, guns, or people that a Mexican national was caught smuggling; a tip led to an airport arrest and seizure of living contraband stuffed in socks.
“If there’s a market for it, people will attempt to smuggle it.”
Traveling through Japan, one might expect to come across myriad representations of famed movie monster Godzilla. While a statue modeled after the original creature was installed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, roughly 200 lizards of a different sort were discovered in a man’s suitcase, including some from the endangered species list.
The Japan Times reported that on August 8, Daniel Isaac Velasco Baltazar of Mexico traveled from South Korea to Japan without declaring his cold-blooded cargo at customs. Upon arrival in the island nation, a July tip from authorities in Mexico paid off as agents on alert discovered the 23-year-old to be smuggling scores of lizards stuffed into 22 pairs of socks, with at least one said to have been dead.
The assortment included nine Mexican alligator lizards, which are included on the endangered species list and restricted from international trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
🇯🇵 A man flew into Tokyo with 200 lizards stuffed into socks and walked straight into a trap.
The 23-year-old Mexican national landed at Haneda Airport with roughly 200 live lizards packed into 22 pairs of socks and T-shirts.
He reportedly bought some for as little as $3.50… pic.twitter.com/Ze17x7zK91
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 17, 2026
According to Baltazar’s own reported admission of guilt upon arrest, he purchased the lizards in Mexico at prices between $3.50 and $4.70 a piece with the expectation of selling them ahead of the Japan Reptiles Show in September, billed as the nation’s largest exotic-animal sales event.
Compared to the meager purchase price of the lizards, the smuggler stood to gain a tremendous amount, as some of the reptiles are said to be valued at over $600 in Japan.
“If there’s a market for it, people will attempt to smuggle it,” K2 Security Screening Group vice president Keith Jeffries told Fox News Digital. The former federal security director of Los Angeles International Airport added, “We’ve seen this before many times. It happens more frequently than any of us would like.”
The security expert explained that screeners prioritize searches for threatening items like weapons, and even employees of the Transportation Security Administration could inadvertently miss a suitcase full of lizards.
“The TSA security directives do not look for items from just a smuggling standpoint. They look for guns, knives, explosives, incendiary devices — and it’s very specific and narrow to that,” he told the outlet as he noted a similarly large smuggling effort of the past with about 100 exotic birds in a checked bag.
Though not living, U.S. Customs and Border Protection shared a considerable discovery thanks to K9 Maisy after a traveler from Thailand attempted to smuggle dozens of pounds of undeclared food into Los Angeles.
Sharing a picture from the seizure, the suitcase was said to have contained 50 pounds of meat — cooked and raw — 33 pounds of bamboo, banana plants, garlic and mangoes, as well as 16 pounds of Bengal monitor lizard.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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