Traveller caught in India with monkey in pants

Customs authorities in India have arrested a man who was attempting to board a flight at New Delhi's international airport with a monkey in his underwear, a report said on Monday. The man, who was detained along with two other travellers, had arrived from Bangkok and was about to take a connecting flight to Dubai on Jet Airways, the Press Trust of India reported. Personnel at the airport found the seven-inch (17-centimetre) loris, a type of monkey native to India and southeast Asia, "in one of the passengers' underwear during the security check," PTI said. Another loris was discovered in a dustbin at the Indira Gandhi International airport. "They had abandoned him as they were unable to carry him," a senior security official told the news agency. The passengers, named as Hamad Al-Dhaheri, Mohammed Al-Shamsi and Rashid Al-Shamsi, were handed over to Wildlife and Customs Department for further questioning and were later arrested by customs police. Authorities were trying to determine the exact origin of the monkeys. Customs officials recently caught an Indian man at Mumbai's main airport with 10 turtles in his underwear, which he was trying to smuggle into the city from Bangkok, the Hindustan Times reported last week. They also seized six Persian cats, three poisonous tarantula spiders and 11 birds eggs from the man and his two accomplices, the report said. The newspaper quoted a customs official saying the men were fined and sent back to Bangkok with the protected species and eggs they were trying to smuggle.