Three Canadian women are being held in a Seattle detention centre after an elaborate Kinder Egg smuggling ring was uncovered. Border officials have seized more than 6,000 chocolate eggs containing tiny toys such as a little plastic horse that is also a whistle.
The Italian confectionary is popular in Canada but illegal in the US where small plastic items, like a wind-up, walking piece of cake or a raccoon playing the trumpet, are considered choking habits. This has created a lucrative black market, a source of increasing tension between the Harper and Obama governments.
"I thought maybe it was drugs but when I opened it up it was a little plastic fox dressed like a queen. I called the police right away."
Dale Lawson, dog walker
A 500 ft. tunnel running from the outskirts of Abbotsford, B.C. to a shed in Clearbrook, WA was detected late last week by Dale Lawson while he was walking his dog: "Buster got into this weird looking shed," say Lawson, "he comes out with chocolate in his mouth."
Lawson, worried that his dog could get sick, took the chocolate and found it contained a plastic capsule. "I thought maybe it was drugs but when I opened it up it was a little plastic fox dressed like a queen. I called the police right away."
Police arrived just as Melanie Russet, Marg Spooner and Lynn Dodwell emerged from the tunnel with flats of chocolate eggs. The three were taken into custody and more arrests on both sides of the border are expected.
It's estimated that up to 800,000 eggs cross the border every year and while there have yet to be any reported fatalities, it's only a matter of time before a child chokes on a tiny house with googly eyes or a pen shaped like a ski.
Lawson, worried that his dog could get sick, took the chocolate and found it contained a plastic capsule. "I thought maybe it was drugs but when I opened it up it was a little plastic fox dressed like a queen. I called the police right away."
It's estimated that up to 800,000 eggs cross the border every year and while there have yet to be any reported fatalities, it's only a matter of time before a child chokes on a tiny house with googly eyes or a pen shaped like a ski.
Thought it was the onion at first.
Thought it was the onion at first.
What's funny is that it's not even really a choking hazard, the toy is in a rather large plastic egg inside the chocolate egg. Even if you were some stupid kid that has no idea there is a toy in there, the worse thing that could happen is you bite the plastic egg inside, but these eggs arn't really a size that makes it easy to bite directly, you normally break them with your hands and eat the pieces.
I'm hungry for one now. I should go pick some up.
I wonder how many children actually choked on those eggs to prompt bureaucrats to make this critical decision.
It just goes to prove the old add age, those who work in government are those who were too stupid to get a job anywhere else. I wonder how many children actually choked on those eggs to prompt bureaucrats to make this critical decision. I know when I was a kid, I never got the inkling to put the toy in my mouth.
'Murika. Taking idiotic things more seriously than actual crime.
http://www.cbc.ca/thisisthat/blog/2...ise-smuggling-ring-broken-up-by-us-officials/
This is hilarious.
You missed the entire point. They are selling 800,000 eggs a year and not paying 1 cent of tax on that money.
People go to prison for selling contraband be it cigarettes, car parts, or easter eggs. They make cash and don't pay the piper.
"Every store in Brooklyn," the bodega owner said, buys cigarettes from someone who travels down South to states with lower cigarette taxes. In places like Virginia, North Carolina and Delaware, they'll buy cartons containing 10 packs of cigarettes for around $48 a pop, then come back to New York, where local stores will buy them around $55.
"My guy has 100 different businesses he sells to," the bodega owner said, gesturing across the street at a Chinese restaurant, a laundromat and a barbershop. "All three of those stores buy and sell smuggled cigarettes too," he said.
He said a friend makes a weekly trip to North Carolina with $100,000, loads up on cigarettes, then returns to New York. "He makes a million dollars a year," the bodega owner said.
...
That year, the head the tobacco-diversion division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The Wall Street Journal that states were losing an estimated $5 billion each year due to cigarette smuggling. New York state alone, according to officials in 2011, was losing $525 million a year.
Thought it was the onion at first.
You missed the entire point. They are selling 800,000 eggs a year and not paying 1 cent of tax on that money.
People go to prison for selling contraband be it cigarettes, car parts, or easter eggs. They make cash and don't pay the piper.
Now I'm thinking about prison bitches and bananas but being canucks from that far north they're likely heifers.
You missed the entire point. They are selling 800,000 eggs a year and not paying 1 cent of tax on that money.
People go to prison for selling contraband be it cigarettes, car parts, or easter eggs. They make cash and don't pay the piper.
Now I'm thinking about prison bitches and bananas but being canucks from that far north they're likely heifers.