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How Customs Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Opposite me is one Charles W.
0:21
Speaker 1: Chuck Chuck Tran Bryant. Nice call back, Yeah, Chuck Tran
0:26
Speaker 1: call back? Yeah, the thing? Uh auditioned and won the rowl.
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Speaker 1: You've never acted like audition for anything? I mean sure, No.
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Speaker 1: I used to be in children's theater. Really yeah, interesting,
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Speaker 1: I've never done that except my audition with you, of
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Speaker 1: course for this spot. That one really well, so good. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So you're so kind, You're too kind. You're generous actress
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Speaker 1: I would say about each other Jenners so Chuck, Yes,
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Speaker 1: you just move on. Sure, okay, Um, if you've ever
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Speaker 1: had a hand anchoring for um African monkey meat, I
1:04
Speaker 1: can tell you where in Europe to go get it.
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Speaker 1: Really yeah, you can go to Paris, to Charles de
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Speaker 1: gal Airport and they have monkey meat. They have bush
1:14
Speaker 1: meat of all kinds. Apparently bush meat is what it's called.
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Speaker 1: Bush meat is another term for any kind of wild
1:22
Speaker 1: game or unregulated game. You can make the case that
1:26
Speaker 1: livestock that doesn't pass in through any kind of um
1:30
Speaker 1: regulatory body sure is considered bush meat. But typically bush
1:34
Speaker 1: meat is um. A bush man goes out into the wild,
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Speaker 1: shoots a monkey through the head with an arrow, and
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Speaker 1: um chops it up and there's your meat. You can
1:44
Speaker 1: also do that with um, crocodile. You can do that
1:49
Speaker 1: with river hog, porcupine whatever. It is a little gross,
1:55
Speaker 1: but they there was a study. I guess somebody noticed
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Speaker 1: that there is a lot of bush meat coming through
2:00
Speaker 1: UH Paris, and so these UH wildlife officials got together
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Speaker 1: with the customs agency there and over seventeen days they
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Speaker 1: searched one and thirty four passengers randomly, I guess, but
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Speaker 1: they were probably like, oh, you're coming out of Africa, right,
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Speaker 1: And they found that half of them were carrying bush
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Speaker 1: meat and their luggage unrefrigerated luggage, like you opened up
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Speaker 1: their duffel bag and there was a lot of monkey
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Speaker 1: right there, as opposed to the refrigerated luggage that you
2:30
Speaker 1: you like, well, I mean you would like to think
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Speaker 1: that they would at least, you know, rig some dry
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Speaker 1: ice something. It is a little nasty um, but that,
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Speaker 1: my friend, is part and parcel for a day's work
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Speaker 1: for customs official, is it not? It can be. Let's
2:49
Speaker 1: talk specifically about US customs for a second. Where did
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Speaker 1: it come from, Chuck? Where did this idea originate? Where? Chuck? Well,
2:58
Speaker 1: you know, dude, I know everyone likes to think that
3:00
Speaker 1: our founding fathers were just all about like everybody having
3:04
Speaker 1: freedom and the government, no one owing government money for anything.
3:07
Speaker 1: But that's not true at all. George Washington and the
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Speaker 1: Founding fathers in the first Congress actually said, you know what,
3:14
Speaker 1: we are a struggling nation and we need to raise
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Speaker 1: some dough by way of tariffs on mm hmm, how
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Speaker 1: about imported goods? Right? And so they said sure. So
3:26
Speaker 1: that was the birth of customs, right. Actually, we can
3:28
Speaker 1: point to the very day that it was born. The
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Speaker 1: Terrifact of July four nine was passed on July thirty one,
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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine. Uh and it did exactly what you
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Speaker 1: just said, right, Like you said, if you're carrying stuff
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Speaker 1: into the country, we get the taxi on it just
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Speaker 1: because it's originating outside of the country, right and then
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Speaker 1: right yeah, like Savannah, yeah, um, and uh so people
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Speaker 1: come in there funneled in through these ports, and they're
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Speaker 1: charged dough right big time. They Actually, I was staggered
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Speaker 1: by this. The U S Customs for like a hundred
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Speaker 1: years supported the entire government infrastructure. UM. By eighteen thirty five,
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Speaker 1: we had zero debt thanks to Customs revenue. And even today,
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Speaker 1: as far as I know, the Customs Agency is second
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Speaker 1: only to the I R. S in generating revenue for
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Speaker 1: the United States. Right, Yeah, I think I didn't get
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Speaker 1: a hard number, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of
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Speaker 1: about thirty billion dollars a year that they bring in
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Speaker 1: billion dollars a year from almost what we bring in
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Speaker 1: for discovery. Yeah. Originally, Chuck, the Customs Service did a
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Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff, including UM Census Veterans Affairs UM
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Speaker 1: and the National Institute of Standards in Technology was actually
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Speaker 1: born out of the custom Service. They're the ones who
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Speaker 1: came up with our system of um way and standards
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Speaker 1: because they had to come up with the way to
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Speaker 1: describe stuff that they were seizing or taxing or that
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Speaker 1: kind of thing UM. And actually I wrote a really
5:08
Speaker 1: cool post on the metric system. I don't know if
5:10
Speaker 1: you ever read it, but that's where I learned that
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Speaker 1: it was really cool. It's a cool post. And the
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Speaker 1: Coast Guard two was birthed from the Customs Office. That's right,
5:19
Speaker 1: Jerry thinks you are hilarious anytime I mispronouncing some perfect titters. Um,
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Speaker 1: so chuck. The custom Service did all this stuff, spawned
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Speaker 1: all these extra agencies, and then um pretty much stayed
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Speaker 1: the same for a while until two thousand three, Um,
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Speaker 1: when George W. Was in office. Uh, the Customs Service
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Speaker 1: became the US Customs and Border Protection. Yeah, part of
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Speaker 1: the Homeland Security Office department, which makes sense, I guess
5:51
Speaker 1: in a way unless you have like a comprehensive immigration agency, right,
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Speaker 1: good point, um, And so pretty much their their main
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Speaker 1: job is to control or oversee the flow of goods
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Speaker 1: from outside the borders and and inside the borders out
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Speaker 1: right right. They are this thin blue line between you know,
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Speaker 1: free trade and total anarchy. That's a good point, thanks man. Um.
6:24
Speaker 1: So they seize contraband, they process people, they process cargo. Um,
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Speaker 1: they enforce uh stuff is as laws as desperate as
6:34
Speaker 1: bush meat importation to intellectual property law, Like if you
6:39
Speaker 1: get caught with some you know, burn DVDs that are
6:42
Speaker 1: clearly pirated, you're gonna get in trouble and you would
6:45
Speaker 1: have gotten caught by the Customs Department, right all in all,
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Speaker 1: their enforcing about four hundred different provisions of law, right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and they like to refer to themselves as the oldest
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Speaker 1: law enforcement agency in the United States. And I think
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Speaker 1: the duty that scares me. And we're gonna say duty
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Speaker 1: a lot in this podcast. We should probably just get
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Speaker 1: it over with. Yeah, not d O O D y duty,
7:10
Speaker 1: d U T y duty, right right right, I just
7:14
Speaker 1: want to clear that up, um and chuck. They they
7:19
Speaker 1: oversee what's called exodus um cases. Yeah, what's that? Exodus
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Speaker 1: cases are? I guess that's kind of like broken arrow
7:29
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's, uh, if you have weapons
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Speaker 1: or weapons technology, UM. Weapons intelligence is anything you can
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Speaker 1: destroy the US with or attack the US with. Customs
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Speaker 1: is on that and they deemed those exodus cases and
7:43
Speaker 1: those are big time. Yeah. I just saw a guy.
7:46
Speaker 1: I didn't look into it too heavily, but like in
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Speaker 1: the news this week, there's some custom sting operation where
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Speaker 1: this big businessman was selling like some sort of batteries
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Speaker 1: that help uh a missile launch to Iran or something.
8:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, I need to look it up. But
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Speaker 1: big stinging down type that is exodus. Um, I guess
8:08
Speaker 1: if the urban legend about Saddam Hussein importing PlayStations to
8:13
Speaker 1: use the very sophisticated chips in his guided missile. Yeah, yeah,
8:18
Speaker 1: when I think the first PlayStation came out, that that
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Speaker 1: was an urban legend around it. Yeah, that's a silly one.
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Speaker 1: So chuckers, Like we said, at the basis of all this,
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Speaker 1: it's the customs service in any country is charged with
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Speaker 1: keeping an eye on the flow of goods across the borders, right.
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Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why is because, as we saw,
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Speaker 1: George Washington and the founding fathers were hipped to the
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Speaker 1: idea that being government and all, you can push around
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Speaker 1: guys who are importers exporters, right and um say, hey,
8:54
Speaker 1: give us a cut. Well, yeah, the idea is kind
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Speaker 1: of twofold. It's um. One is because America wants you
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Speaker 1: to buy American goods, but a lot of times, most
9:04
Speaker 1: times goods from other countries you can buy cheaper. So
9:07
Speaker 1: they say, all right, well, if you're gonna buy something
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Speaker 1: from over there, we want to want you to support America.
9:12
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna do that, then we want to
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Speaker 1: get our our piece of the pie, right or they
9:16
Speaker 1: will they charge duty on um. Say, uh, some breros
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Speaker 1: in Mexico. That's a good one. So there. So you
9:25
Speaker 1: can get a sombrero here, but you're gonna pay like
9:27
Speaker 1: seventeen dollars for it, the same sombrero, virtually the same,
9:32
Speaker 1: except it was manufactured in Mexico. Mexico is a bad
9:35
Speaker 1: example after NAFTA has passed. But let's stick with it,
9:39
Speaker 1: shall we. Um, you can get that one for two bucks. Well,
9:43
Speaker 1: the government's gonna impose a duty on it. So maybe
9:46
Speaker 1: ultimately once you pay the duty and how much you
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Speaker 1: were being charged for the sombrero. You're actually paying nineteen
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Speaker 1: dollars for the Mexican one, where you can get the
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Speaker 1: seventeen dollar one here in the US, so you might
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Speaker 1: as well just get that. Well yeah, but that that's
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Speaker 1: if you're shipping like large. Like there's duty free exemptions.
10:05
Speaker 1: We should go over that real quick. Yeah, duty free?
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Speaker 1: Explain it? Duty free is uh? In the United States?
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Speaker 1: You get a four hundred exemption if you come back
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Speaker 1: into the country from anywhere except a Caribbean basin country
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Speaker 1: or the Virgin Islands, Guam or American Samoa. So if
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Speaker 1: you come in from Europe, let's say you're allowed to
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Speaker 1: bring four dollars worth of stuff in uh, and you
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Speaker 1: declare it and um, four dollars worth of bush meat
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Speaker 1: of bush meat, and then after that you have to
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Speaker 1: start paying your tariff on that. And they they have
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Speaker 1: specific outlines for um like tobacco you can bring two
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Speaker 1: hundred cigarettes or a hundred cigars as part of that
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Speaker 1: under four hundred dollars. And alcohol, of course, you can
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Speaker 1: bring in one leader a booze duty free. And you
10:54
Speaker 1: can bring in a curtain of cigarettes and a leader
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Speaker 1: of booze. Yeah, that's a party right there. You got it.
11:00
Speaker 1: And you know, a few cigars as long as they're
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Speaker 1: not Cubans, which we'll get to. But I did find
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Speaker 1: this interesting. Fine art and antiques that are at least
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Speaker 1: a hundred years old or not subject to tax really
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Speaker 1: no matter. I mean it could be like a ten
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Speaker 1: thousand dollar painting and no duty. What about a twelve
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Speaker 1: thousand dollar painting no duty? Huh? Ask me about folk art?
11:19
Speaker 1: What about folk art? Chuck duty? Really? Yeah? Just fine
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Speaker 1: art folk The custom service has an opinion on art,
11:29
Speaker 1: and the folk art is crappy. Yeah, or maybe not,
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Speaker 1: or maybe they think it's so great it should be taxed. No,
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Speaker 1: I don't think that's no. No, have you seen folk
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Speaker 1: art before? Yeah? I had. I should say say this
11:43
Speaker 1: real quick. When I was living in l A. I
11:46
Speaker 1: went to a show with Emily, one of those shows
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Speaker 1: where they have folk art, and I thought that, wow,
11:51
Speaker 1: what a scam. He was like, I could I should
11:53
Speaker 1: do this? And I came up with an idea to
11:54
Speaker 1: drum up um buzz by calling, over the course of
11:59
Speaker 1: like a year or different places and saying, hey, do
12:01
Speaker 1: you have any art by Chuck Bryant, this artist, and
12:05
Speaker 1: to the point where they had heard this name. And
12:07
Speaker 1: then at one point I would enter these places and say, hey,
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Speaker 1: I'm Chuck Bryan. I didn't know if you want to
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Speaker 1: cover some of my carry some of my art nice.
12:13
Speaker 1: They'd be like, well, we've heard of you. Let me
12:15
Speaker 1: see that piece of tin the east Lung paints on.
12:17
Speaker 1: That's actually a brilliant idea, Chuck, somebody should go do that.
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Speaker 1: Why didn't you ever do it? Because it's fraud and
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Speaker 1: it's not nicer ethical. I don't know that that's fraud
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Speaker 1: in the art world. No, Okay, I think that's just
12:29
Speaker 1: normal business. You know, I didn't do it. I was lazy. Yeah. Um,
12:34
Speaker 1: so that's duty free. That is very odd. Did you
12:37
Speaker 1: find out why folk art is just that it is? No,
12:41
Speaker 1: we could probably call and get an answer to that.
12:43
Speaker 1: You want to call right now? Okay? Um, so we
12:48
Speaker 1: covered duty free, right, yeah, And I guess we should
12:51
Speaker 1: talk about big business. It's because there's two different kinds.
12:54
Speaker 1: There's people, there's businesses that ship in and import tons
12:57
Speaker 1: of stuff and ports of call, and then there's you
13:00
Speaker 1: and I getting off an airplane. Well we should say
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Speaker 1: also that with duty free, the exemption applies to the importer,
13:07
Speaker 1: not the customer. Right, So if we come back into
13:10
Speaker 1: the States or yeah, if we come back into the
13:14
Speaker 1: States and we say I could use a leader of
13:16
Speaker 1: Scotch and the cartoner Dunhills, so we pick them up
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Speaker 1: and then we continue on into the United States, we
13:22
Speaker 1: don't pay any duty. But if we do the same
13:24
Speaker 1: thing at Charles de Gaul Airport, uh, and then coming
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Speaker 1: to the United States, we pay a duty because we're
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Speaker 1: still importing, right yeah, yeah, okay, so you're actually an
13:33
Speaker 1: importer that that you're classified as an importer. Yea, So
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Speaker 1: big business Josh, millions of dollars worth of goods each
13:40
Speaker 1: year UH is imported and are imported, and they kind
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Speaker 1: of keep track of it the same way as they
13:48
Speaker 1: do with individuals. They like, they can't inspect every single
13:51
Speaker 1: thing or every single person, so they'll just kind of
13:53
Speaker 1: pick and choose. I'll open up a cargo container and say,
13:56
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at these seven boxes in container eight,
14:00
Speaker 1: and then the guy crosses his fingers that the cocaine
14:02
Speaker 1: is not in those, you know gargo holds exactly. And
14:06
Speaker 1: that's that's a deterrent in and of itself, the randomness
14:08
Speaker 1: of it, all right. But at the same time, that
14:12
Speaker 1: method means that tons and tons and tons of illicit
14:17
Speaker 1: substances seep through our rather poorout border. And it's not
14:22
Speaker 1: it's not just with big business too, it's individual travelers
14:25
Speaker 1: as well. Like UM. Some countries use actual you know chance.
14:30
Speaker 1: They leave it to chance who gets searched. So they
14:32
Speaker 1: have people passing through their borders at their airports press
14:37
Speaker 1: a random number generator and a certain number will trigger
14:41
Speaker 1: a green light which means you keep going, and other
14:43
Speaker 1: will trigger a red light that means you're going to
14:46
Speaker 1: be your rectum is about to be probed, or instinct,
14:49
Speaker 1: which is my favorite, when the they count on the
14:52
Speaker 1: border agent to be the customs agent to be so
14:55
Speaker 1: skilled that they can like eyeball you and say that
14:59
Speaker 1: guy has something stuffed in a place that we should check.
15:02
Speaker 1: Either that or the GDP of that country is so
15:04
Speaker 1: low that they don't have enough money for a random
15:07
Speaker 1: number generator. They rely on instinct, which comes with the salary.
15:11
Speaker 1: That's a good point, Chuck. We we talked about illicit
15:14
Speaker 1: substances cocaine, uh, marijuana, Um sure, So, like we were
15:25
Speaker 1: just saying, the stuff is coming through all the time,
15:28
Speaker 1: and Customs is aware of this. I don't know if
15:30
Speaker 1: you knew this or not, but they know that they're
15:32
Speaker 1: drugs coming across the border, and um, they have equipment
15:38
Speaker 1: at their disposal right at the ports. We talked about
15:41
Speaker 1: the random number generator. The US is fairly flushed with
15:44
Speaker 1: with cash as far as UM customs go. So we
15:47
Speaker 1: actually have truck size X rays that you can literally
15:52
Speaker 1: they're big enough to drive a truck through at the
15:54
Speaker 1: US Mexican border. Have you really you've driven through the
15:57
Speaker 1: X ray before? What's it like? Were you inside? Uh?
16:02
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Dangerous. Well, I means the same
16:04
Speaker 1: as walking through an X ray, which is pretty dangerous.
16:08
Speaker 1: But this is like a truck size X ray. Yeah,
16:11
Speaker 1: good point. And din't really think about that. Yeah, been
16:13
Speaker 1: over and across the border quite a few times. I
16:16
Speaker 1: got you never carried anything unlicit. That's very smart, don't
16:19
Speaker 1: you worry? Yeah? Um, we also have black Hawk helicopter
16:23
Speaker 1: citation jets at our disposals. Cigarette boats, yes, for catching
16:28
Speaker 1: cigarette smugglers. No, those are the super fast boats like
16:31
Speaker 1: Miami Bice is it? Apparently the drug smugglers that come
16:35
Speaker 1: in like undercover of the night, really fast. And so
16:38
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard works in concert with the d e A.
16:41
Speaker 1: It's a joint effort and customs agents. It's not a
16:44
Speaker 1: joint effort, no it is. I just thought that was
16:47
Speaker 1: a funny pun. Yeah, so they're looking for, you know,
16:51
Speaker 1: bad things. And I looked up you know they mentioned
16:55
Speaker 1: in here that people actually smuggle things in on their
16:57
Speaker 1: person they'll go through customs instead trying to smuggle it
17:00
Speaker 1: around customs, And uh, I thought they should have a
17:04
Speaker 1: TV show called Smugglers Do the Darnest Things, because have
17:08
Speaker 1: you ever seen I mean, I know you hear about
17:10
Speaker 1: these stories from time to time. But the way that
17:12
Speaker 1: these people trying to get drugs in the country, it's
17:14
Speaker 1: crazy in their bodies. Remember the guy that made a
17:18
Speaker 1: cast a foot cast out of cocaine. No, I hadn't
17:21
Speaker 1: heard of that. I think we talked about them the webcast.
17:23
Speaker 1: It was either that or we talked about they made
17:25
Speaker 1: a dinet set. Like the plates and the bowls, we're
17:28
Speaker 1: all made of cocaine. It's crazy. Uh. There was the
17:33
Speaker 1: that was twenty kilow's of coke by the way, for
17:35
Speaker 1: the dinner were. One thing they'll do is they'll put
17:38
Speaker 1: it in a condom and feed it to their snake,
17:41
Speaker 1: their pet snake, and then smuggle the snake in, which
17:44
Speaker 1: I guess is easier than smuggling drugs. And I don't know.
17:47
Speaker 1: That seemed like I wonder if people. I wonder if
17:49
Speaker 1: the average customs agent is afraid of snakes like any
17:52
Speaker 1: other person. Yeah, maybe so they figured that out. Frozen
17:56
Speaker 1: sharks I saw her some I think it was Cambodia.
17:59
Speaker 1: They had like forty frozen sharks and they were stuffed
18:01
Speaker 1: full of drugs. Uh. And then the sad ones like
18:05
Speaker 1: the when they smuggle them inside the dogs liquid heroin
18:08
Speaker 1: inside the puppies. Remember that was a few years ago.
18:10
Speaker 1: And then uh, this yellow lab had likety dollars worth
18:15
Speaker 1: of cocaine and it's belly one time when they were
18:16
Speaker 1: smuggling this dog in. It's a bad dog. He's a
18:19
Speaker 1: good dog, bad people. Jerry slaughing again, So U how
18:27
Speaker 1: how would you stop that? Though in an airport let's say, Well, again,
18:31
Speaker 1: there's some the randomness of the whole thing serves as
18:35
Speaker 1: a deterrent um two into intuition, as you said. And
18:40
Speaker 1: dogs good dogs, not ones that are drug smuggling bad dogs,
18:44
Speaker 1: but they kind of tattle on drug smuggling dogs. Good dogs.
18:47
Speaker 1: Beagles specifically are good apparently not just for illicit drugs,
18:52
Speaker 1: but especially for agricultural products. Apparently they're fine tuned to
18:57
Speaker 1: sniff those out and bombs of course, which has nothing
19:00
Speaker 1: to do with the customs. But I was actually in
19:03
Speaker 1: I guess Atlanta. I don't know where I was coming
19:06
Speaker 1: back from, but um, there was this cute little beagle
19:10
Speaker 1: who walked up to this woman and just sat down
19:12
Speaker 1: and looked up at her. And this customs guy was like, man,
19:15
Speaker 1: we please come with me, and uh, turn out she
19:18
Speaker 1: had fruit on her. Oh yeah, yeah, well you should
19:22
Speaker 1: go ahead and mention that. Then well it's it's more
19:24
Speaker 1: of a threat than you would think, right, absolutely. Um,
19:27
Speaker 1: there's there's apparently a guy in the late eighties who
19:31
Speaker 1: brought a piece of fruit, one piece of fruit back
19:34
Speaker 1: from the Mediterranean and it was infested with Mediterranean fruit
19:39
Speaker 1: flies and it contaminated and destroyed millions of dollars worth
19:46
Speaker 1: of crops in California that year. That's crazy. One piece
19:49
Speaker 1: of fruit. Have you ever driven into California? Uh? You got,
19:54
Speaker 1: I've always flown in. Yeah, you gotta stop and they check,
19:56
Speaker 1: they check your car. It's a real bummer too, because
19:58
Speaker 1: when you make the Vegas to CA California trip, you're
20:01
Speaker 1: coming back from Vegas and all you want to do
20:03
Speaker 1: is get back to your house and sleep, and you
20:05
Speaker 1: gotta stop at this It's always backed up for miles
20:08
Speaker 1: and they you know, it's the fruit, it's the agriculture.
20:10
Speaker 1: Stop really yeah, And they asked they either ask you
20:14
Speaker 1: to you know, do you have any fruits, vegetables or seeds,
20:17
Speaker 1: or they just eyeball you in your car and like
20:20
Speaker 1: we'll wave you through or or say stop. They rely
20:23
Speaker 1: on intuition. See if you like a pair smuggler. Yeah,
20:27
Speaker 1: I always getting nervous. I don't know why. It's just fruit,
20:29
Speaker 1: the drug, dogs, everything. They always make me nervous and
20:32
Speaker 1: I never you know. Of course I don't have like
20:34
Speaker 1: cocaine strapped on my belly, but it just makes me nervous. No,
20:37
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty typical. And I think they make
20:40
Speaker 1: everybody nervous. You know, you're being scrutinized, you know, and
20:45
Speaker 1: nobody feels comfortable being scrutinized. Right, Or maybe it's a
20:49
Speaker 1: the T shirt that don't scrutinize me T shirt. I
20:51
Speaker 1: have one, right, I don't have drugs on me. Um.
20:55
Speaker 1: Dogs also get taken onto planes, Chuck, I thought this
20:58
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. Um, it's very roundabout, but it
21:01
Speaker 1: makes sense. They'll take a dog onto a plane to
21:03
Speaker 1: sniff around after everyone's disembarked, and if somebody had drugs
21:09
Speaker 1: on him or her, uh, he or she would have
21:11
Speaker 1: left some sort of trace on that seat, so the
21:14
Speaker 1: dog will like, say the seat right here. They'll look
21:17
Speaker 1: up on the flight manifest who is sitting there, find them,
21:20
Speaker 1: and then take them to be thrown in prison. It
21:23
Speaker 1: was Josh Clark, right, Black ghost to the sky. Uh.
21:26
Speaker 1: The other cool thing too that we didn't mention was
21:28
Speaker 1: the electro vacuum device. It's like a handheld dust buster
21:33
Speaker 1: super dustbuster sort of, but it analyzes particles in the air.
21:38
Speaker 1: So if you have cocaine packed in your suitcase, in theory,
21:41
Speaker 1: there's probably some like residue floating in the air and
21:45
Speaker 1: these things will sniff that out. Well, it's it's like
21:47
Speaker 1: um poop, when you smell poop, it's an odorant. It's
21:50
Speaker 1: an actual poop molecule that you're interacting with the same thing.
21:57
Speaker 1: That's very good. What he just winked at me? What
22:00
Speaker 1: else we got here? Oh, money's cash. You're not allowed
22:06
Speaker 1: to take more than ten thousand dollars in cash out
22:08
Speaker 1: of the country. But I would suspect that if you
22:13
Speaker 1: had nine, then you're probably a little suspicious. I don't
22:18
Speaker 1: know that for sure, or maybe that happens a lot
22:21
Speaker 1: and and you're not suspicious. What do you think. I
22:24
Speaker 1: think if if you're a penny over ten thousand bucks,
22:28
Speaker 1: they know it. I think if you get anywhere near it,
22:31
Speaker 1: or if you declared ten thousand dollars, they check you. Okay,
22:36
Speaker 1: I never lived I mean I never have more than
22:37
Speaker 1: like eight bucks on me anywhere US. Yeah, I've never
22:40
Speaker 1: had ten thousand dollars in cash on me ever probably
22:43
Speaker 1: never will of course not Chuck, you mentioned art. Customs
22:47
Speaker 1: agents are also on high alert for antiquities, including once
22:52
Speaker 1: you remember when we invaded Iraq there was a huge
22:55
Speaker 1: cultural ransacking. Their museums were getting looted. I mean, you know,
23:00
Speaker 1: ancient stuff is just being moved out of a rock, right, Um,
23:05
Speaker 1: once it's in UM, I guess us borders there's that
23:10
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean you're out of the woods. There was,
23:13
Speaker 1: um the example of customs finding a thousand year old
23:18
Speaker 1: Chinese sculpture that have been stolen from a tomb in
23:23
Speaker 1: turning up um on Christie's auction catalog. I guess they
23:27
Speaker 1: monitor these, uh and then cross reference them, and they
23:31
Speaker 1: found that it was going to be auction contacted. Christie said, hey,
23:36
Speaker 1: we're gonna be taking that and give it back to China. Right,
23:39
Speaker 1: So that's a that's something. Yeah. And this news story
23:43
Speaker 1: I pulled from just a couple of days ago in Bulgaria. Yeah,
23:46
Speaker 1: they at a border check between Calatina and Serbia. They
23:52
Speaker 1: discovered four artifacts from third and second century BC and
23:57
Speaker 1: first century a c. That we're wrapped in that kins
24:00
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the suitcase. And the guy was like, Oh,
24:01
Speaker 1: those are just drink it gifts for my family there
24:05
Speaker 1: thousands of years old. So busted. Yeah, is he busted? Busted?
24:10
Speaker 1: They didn't believe him. Uh No, they didn't believe him,
24:14
Speaker 1: and they did some checking and they haven't like nothing
24:16
Speaker 1: has turned up missing for museums or anything yet, but
24:18
Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll get to the bottom. Mother. Um. Lastly, Chuck,
24:24
Speaker 1: we were talking about bush meat. You were you you also, um,
24:28
Speaker 1: you can't bring dog meat into the US. That's a
24:31
Speaker 1: good thing, especially after two thousand when the US passed
24:34
Speaker 1: the Dogging Cat Protection Act, which is the most adorable
24:37
Speaker 1: act we've ever passed. I think it is. But sad
24:40
Speaker 1: that we needed that. Yeah, well, none of it. Not
24:42
Speaker 1: every country's you know, they don't look at dogs necessarily
24:46
Speaker 1: the way we do. Yeah, it's a good point. You know,
24:48
Speaker 1: some countries look at dogs the way we look at monkeys.
24:53
Speaker 1: It's like meat, right, you know, Yeah, we prize them
24:57
Speaker 1: for their fur kind of stuff. And think about that.
25:00
Speaker 1: Oh another thing too, it's not always illegal stuff per se,
25:04
Speaker 1: Like Cuban cigar. Sometimes it's just there's like an embargo
25:08
Speaker 1: trade embargo. That's a really good example. But I mean,
25:11
Speaker 1: don't you sence you regard Cuban cigars and what's the
25:13
Speaker 1: same way you would drugs too, Just because it has
25:16
Speaker 1: that stamp of forbiddness on it, it's it is, it
25:19
Speaker 1: seems like highly illegal. You know, I'm on the internet.
25:23
Speaker 1: Now I've heard that you can and and like they
25:26
Speaker 1: send you the cigars and then like a week later,
25:28
Speaker 1: in different package they send you the bands. The bands. Yeah,
25:32
Speaker 1: I've heard of the I wouldn't know. I know, you
25:34
Speaker 1: wouldn't show up kid like Switzerland or Sweden. You can
25:37
Speaker 1: buy him from something like that. Uh. Well, if you
25:40
Speaker 1: want to know more about customs, we have a lot
25:43
Speaker 1: of articles on the side about it. I think if
25:46
Speaker 1: you're just type in customs in the search part how
25:49
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, it's gonna bring up, um, probably
25:53
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff things for Christmas, um, illegal border crossings,
25:59
Speaker 1: that kind this stuff. There's one on US customs in particular.
26:03
Speaker 1: UM And I said search bar right, which, as everyone knows,
26:07
Speaker 1: is the automatic trigger for listener mail. Right, Okay, Josh,
26:13
Speaker 1: this one struck us both pretty pretty well. Here from
26:16
Speaker 1: Sergeant Walker in Afghanistan. Yeah, this is cool, This is awesome.
26:20
Speaker 1: We love hearing from our men and women, servicemen and
26:23
Speaker 1: women over there putting their lives at risk, and this
26:25
Speaker 1: is a good one. Hello guys, my name is Sergeant
26:28
Speaker 1: John Walker. I'm with the hundred and third Special Ops
26:32
Speaker 1: Division in Afghanistan. I cannot give you a more district
26:35
Speaker 1: descriptive location, he says. My platoon and I protect the
26:38
Speaker 1: surrounding areas near schools so that children may achieve a
26:42
Speaker 1: well rounded education. My life is not easy, but one
26:45
Speaker 1: thing makes it all the better. Your podcast is the
26:47
Speaker 1: thing that keeps me going strong out here. Every podcast
26:50
Speaker 1: keeps me wanting more, and the next one comes out,
26:53
Speaker 1: and so forth, so forth. I always have my iPod
26:57
Speaker 1: on listening to you guys. And some of my platoon
27:00
Speaker 1: asked what I was listening to all the time, so
27:02
Speaker 1: I turned them onto it, and now they are at
27:04
Speaker 1: least one hundred guys who use my computer to download
27:07
Speaker 1: your podcast. How cool is that? It's cool, but it
27:10
Speaker 1: doesn't stuff there, Like I said, with the children in
27:13
Speaker 1: the school, Although some speak poor English, most speak the
27:16
Speaker 1: local dialect of Farci. My friend and I have learned
27:19
Speaker 1: a little bit of farcy and actually translate your podcast
27:22
Speaker 1: for the older children to be able to understand it.
27:24
Speaker 1: We don't do some like the large a drunk collider,
27:27
Speaker 1: but more simple ones that they can understand and that
27:29
Speaker 1: we can translate. We're expecting care packages soon. And I
27:33
Speaker 1: asked my family for a camera so I could share
27:36
Speaker 1: all of our happiness with you. I wish I had
27:38
Speaker 1: something I could give back to you guys. And clearly,
27:41
Speaker 1: Sergeant Walker, what you give us is mind and cool
27:45
Speaker 1: emails and cool emails. Yes, so we wrote him back
27:48
Speaker 1: and he's a he's a very cool guy. And he's
27:50
Speaker 1: still over there and he's still safe. This came in,
27:52
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit ago. Yeah, pretty cool. So
27:55
Speaker 1: good luck to you, sir, Good luck, Sargeant Walker. Right, yes, um,
28:00
Speaker 1: And if you have a cool email about translating our
28:04
Speaker 1: podcast into some other language to help other people, we
28:07
Speaker 1: want to know about it. Bet we don't get anymore. Uh.
28:11
Speaker 1: If you have one, though, or if you just want
28:13
Speaker 1: to say hi or something like that, you can email
28:17
Speaker 1: checking me at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
28:21
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
28:30
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works? Dot com. Want more how
28:33
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff
28:35
Speaker 1: Works dot Com home page. Brought to you by the
28:40
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you