Peru airport officials discover 3,000 tarantulas smuggled inside dirty socks

Three suitcases’ worth of the spiders were on their way to Germany, where they could fetch an estimated €1.5m

More than 3,000 tarantulas were seized at an airport in Lima on their way to Germany, Peruvian authorities said.

The spiders were hidden inside dirty socks contained in three suitcases carried by two Germans and a Polish citizen, the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) told Agence France-Presse on Thursday.

They were spotted after agents noticed some unusual wriggling inside the luggage during a routine customs inspection at Jorge Chávez international airport. “We noticed that some of them were moving. There were small ones and large ones,” said Cora Suarez, a SERFOR wildlife control technician.