Sneaking In a Piece of Homeland : Inspectors Try to Stop New Wave of Foods, Plants and Rare Species Smuggled by Travelers

When Dang Nhi returned from Vietnam this month, she had a collection of souvenirs, including four packages of cha bong, nestled inside her canvas suitcase.

To the 23-year-old Anaheim woman, the dried shredded pork, marinated in sauce made from fresh fish netted off of Vietnam’s coast, was a prized gift for relatives in America.

But to federal inspectors at Los Angeles International Airport, the pork processed overseas was a potential disease waiting to happen, and part of a new wave of quarantine products seized from Vietnamese Americans traveling home since diplomatic ties were restored last year.

As Tet--the Chinese lunar new year--approaches in a few weeks, federal agents are bracing for a throng of travelers to the Southeast Asian nation who inevitably will try to sneak back foods, fruits and plants that have not been inspected. Another concern is increased smuggling of products made from endangered species, some of which are found only in Vietnam.

“Vietnam is our biggest problem right now,” said Dave Thompson, a supervisor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as he examined two guavas for insects at the Bradley International Terminal.

Los Angeles leads all U.S. airports in the amount of quarantine materials seized. Although Vietnam is their newest problem, federal inspectors say they also continue to be deluged with contraband carried by travelers coming from such places as Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.

“We had 7 million people coming through here last year, many of whom are immigrants,” Thompson said. “They almost always want to bring a piece of home with them.”

The cat-and-mouse game begins at the baggage carousels inside the Bradley terminal, where inspectors from the Agriculture Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Customs Service begin eyeing passengers.

Telltale signs include parents hauling suitcases bigger than their children, people donning heavy coats that seem to move “in strange ways,” and packages that don’t “shake right,” Thompson said. Three USDA beagles are stationed in the area to sniff out foods and other illicit items.

USDA inspectors have found meats sealed inside a toy package, shredded pork packed underneath dried tea leaves in a sealed can and green mangoes tucked inside a pair of shoes. Inspectors recalled one man from Thailand who declared that he had no meats, but was found with a load of “lizards-on-a-stick.”

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The man had a box filled with dried, six-inch lizards skewered on sticks with arms akimbo, said Lance Kanemoto, USDA plant protection and quarantine officer.

Last year, a traveler from Vietnam arrived toting a roasted Pygmy loris monkey, an endangered species.

“The person had taken bites from the legs,” said Mike Osborn, a Fish and Wildlife supervisor. “I think she must have been using it as an on-flight snack or something.”

In 1995, the USDA fined nearly 4,000 world travelers amounts ranging from $50 to $1,000 for failing to declare quarantine products. Nhi, the Anaheim woman, had to pay $50 for failing to declare her cha bong.

While many travelers are ignorant of the law, others clearly try to tiptoe around it.

Monkeys have been banned from entering the country since 1976 because of the diseases they carry, but passengers still try to smuggle them past wildlife agents. Agents have found live baby monkeys packed in little sacks, under the hats of travelers and once wrapped around a man’s neck, Osborn said.

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“They’re bringing everything under the sun--stuff we’ve never seen before,” said Thompson, the USDA’s assistant officer in charge at the airport. “And some people will deny until the end.”

Agents say organic products from overseas can pose health threats to people, native plants and animals.

The peril is especially high in California because of the region’s dependence on its agricultural economy and the warm weather in which exotic insects thrive. Efforts to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly, which wiped out crops after entering the state in 1979, have cost more than $100 million.

Humans also risk infections from diseases such as the ebola virus, encephalitis and hoof-and-mouth disease. Last summer, 244 people died in Zaire after an ebola outbreak, believed to have originated from monkeys carrying the virus.

“We are doing everything we can to prevent such outbreaks,” said Patrick McPherren, a USDA compliance officer in Los Angeles. “Our system here is among the strictest in the nation.”

The screening process is part detective work and part education, as agents attempt to explain to travelers why they are barred from bringing frequently found items such as litchis, cannonball fruit and deer antlers into the country.

Even with scores of federal agents working the international terminal, authorities estimate that 84% of quarantine products make their way into the country, according to a 1995 USDA report.

Agents say the Clinton administration’s decision to normalize relations with Vietnam has added a new challenge.

In Orange County, home of Little Saigon and the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside the Southeast Asian nation, tens of thousands have visited their homeland for the first time since the war ended 20 years ago.

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Although commercial traders also concern officials, federal agents say it is the average airline passenger who is more likely to carry potentially dangerous products.

Commercial dealers usually know U.S. requirements and want their products to be free of insects in order to sell them. “They usually meet much higher standards,” said Al Elder, the USDA’s associate deputy administrator for plant protection and quarantine.

Inspectors say they regularly find airline passengers hiding raw pork sausages made by a favorite aunt or a custard apple hand-picked from the garden of their childhood.

“Frequently it’s done in ignorance,” Elder said.

The USDA issued about 250 citations at LAX in December--nearly a third of those went to travelers from Vietnam, although authorities estimated that the group accounted for less than 2% of all international travelers at LAX.

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During February 1995, the month of Tet, as many as 200 people returning from Vietnam were fined for failing to declare quarantine products, Thompson said.

U.S. Wildlife officials, who work with customs to regulate wildlife trafficking, said they are seeing more items made from endangered animals, including sea turtles, tigers and bears, coming from Vietnam.

Among the most unusual are furs of the clouded leopard, which is endangered and has spots the size of a human palm, Osborn said.

“Up until Vietnam became open to wildlife trafficking, we saw maybe one or two of those. Now, we’ve got five or six,” said Osborn, referring to confiscations during the past year.

In the past five years, two species of large mammals--the Vu Quang ox and the giant muntjac --were discovered in Vietnam. The animals were the sixth- and seventh-largest land mammals to be discovered this century, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

“This is extraordinary,” said Ginette Hemley, World Wildlife Fund’s director of international wildlife. “Vietnam has a lot of rare species.

“It’s a very fragile . . . very, very serious situation.”