While advances in screening technology have significantly improved the odds that any illegal item travelers try to smuggle aboard gets caught early in the process, that hasn’t stopped some from continuing to try to hide banned items in all kinds of seemingly ordinary and unusual items.
Incidents highlighted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) over the years include several types of drugs sewn inside a hair scrunchie confiscated at Boise International Airport and 17 bullets “artfully concealed inside the otherwise clean disposable baby diaper” at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
In the latest incident at Indianapolis International Airport, agents for the government agency in charge of airport safety caught a passenger who tried to hide a live smoke grenade inside a jar of peanut butter.
2 live smoke grenades in a jar of peanut butter
“The traveler’s checked bag alarmed and was marked for additional screening,” the TSA said in a news release. “When a supervisory TSA officer and explosives specialist arrived on the scene, they found a little surprise that could have created quite the sticky situation at the airport and for the traveling public — two live smoke grenades, one of which the passenger jammed into a full jar of peanut butter.”
TSA said that the passenger was called in to the ticket counter where he was met by police and an airline station manager.
Related: TSA issues strict warning about ranch dressing
The traveler told the agents that “a friend told him he could get the smoke grenades through TSA by placing them in a jar of peanut butter”; the agency has in turn not elaborated on whether he was allowed to board his flight or will face any additional charges.
TSA used the slightly ludicrous nature of the situation to draw attention to its transportation rules: While peanut butter is considered a cream subject to the three-one-one liquid rule, it should never be used as a vessel to transport weapons, ammunition or other banned items.
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TSA restrictions for peanut butter, ranch dressing, and more
In June, TSA issued a separate warning about ranch dressing after several incidents in which Europeans who came to the U.S. for the World Cup purchased bottles of the condiment to take home only to discover that it would not pass airport security in a carry-on bag.
Given the popularity of ranch dressing, these social media posts ended up going viral.
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While there were no incidents of someone trying to smuggle something through ranch dressing, the TSA periodically puts out reminders both of its regular rules and in response to what it sees take place at different airports across the country.
“Although you may not have intentions for something to occur, carrying prohibited items always has the potential for unintentionally causing harm,” Indiana TSA Federal Security Director Aaron Batt said in a statement on the grenade in the peanut butter. “Imagine in this case had the pressurization caused the device to accidentally release smoke filling the cabin and aircraft while in flight.”
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