An Indian-origin woman has been fined $400 by New Zealand Customs for not declaring two bottles of cow urine.
Border officials fined her after she failed to declare two bottles containing cow urine as part of her luggage after her flight landed there.
The woman was slapped with a fine of 400 New Zealand dollars ($260).
“When the officers started to inspect the contents of the luggage, they found two bottles of cow urine for medicinal purposes,” said Antony Owen, Ministry for Primary Industries central region team manager for border clearance.
Owen said the belief animal products have a healing properties can stop people from thinking they need to declare it.
“We probably get things like this because they are related to culture, religion or traditional medicines. When they fall into that category, that can cloud people’s judgement sometimes in what they’re declaring,” he said.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.