At Cologne-Bonn Airport, customs made an unusual find – namely 1,500 tarantulas hidden in place containers inside cake boxes, reports The Guardian. 

“It left even the most experienced of us speechless,” says an airport spokesperson. 

The package arrived at Germany from Vietnam three weeks ago, but it was on Monday that the authorities made the images public. 

A spokesman for Cologne-Bonn Airport, Jens Ahland, says that staff realized something was wrong because of a ”noticeable smell” – which was not in line with the smell you would expect from 7 kilograms of cake. 

“My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of banned packages from around the world, but the fact that they have found 1,500 small containers containing young tarantulas left even the most experienced of us speechless,” he says. 

”Sad to see what people do to animals”

Ahland believes that it is "sad to see what people do to animals for their own profit.". 

Many of the spiders do not survive the approximately 12-hour flight between Vietnam and Germany. The case is suspected of violating German animal rights law – but is also being investigated for incorrect customs declarations. 

The surviving spiders will be taken care of by an expert, reports The Guardian. 

Source: Expressen.se