Current Affairs

From brown bear skulls to crocodile skulls: protected species seized at the airport

From bear skulls to crocodile skulls, right through to corals. Seizures of protected species found in luggage or within parcels are taking place at airports.

by Davide Madeddu

23 June 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The latest seizure took place just a few days ago: two Siamese crocodile skulls hidden in a consignment from Cambodia and intercepted at the cargo terminal at Malpensa Airport. They were discovered by staff from the Customs and Monopolies Agency, together with the Guardia di Finanza on duty at the airport, after inspecting a consignment ‘whose contents were declared as a “Siamese crocodile gift”’.

The inspection

The customs inspection, carried out through the examination of documentation and a subsequent physical inspection, ‘led to the discovery of two crocodile skulls belonging to the species Crocodylus siamensis (Siamese crocodile), which are subject to the most stringent protection regime under the Washington Convention’.”

“Although they had been duly declared and were accompanied by an export licence issued by the Cambodian authorities,” the Customs and Monopolies Agency emphasises in a statement, “ the specimens lacked the Italian documentation authorising their lawful importation under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Regulation (EC) No 338/97, which safeguard protected species by controlling trade in them. It was precisely the documentary check, carried out by customs, that revealed the absence of the authorisation required for import.” This seizure is merely the latest in a series of control operations carried out at ports and airports.

Coral in Palermo

Last March, 13 specimens of endangered coral were seized at Palermo Airport.

During two separate customs checks, customs officials intercepted two Italian tourists who, having travelled from Mauritius and the Maldives, ‘had concealed corals belonging to the order Scleractinia – a species protected under the Washington Convention – in their luggage’.

A thorough examination had ruled out the possibility that they were stranded specimens. Tourists face an administrative fine.

The brown bear

However, the list of cases does not end there. Last February, a consignment from Bosnia and Herzegovina was intercepted and inspected at Malpensa; its contents were declared as a ‘hunting trophy’.

‘The inspection of the parcel, which contained a bear pelt belonging to the species “Ursus arctos” (brown bear), which had been duly declared – as the ADM explained – led to the discovery of a skull from the same species which, although it falls within the category of specimens protected by the Washington Convention”.

In this case too, the goods were seized and an administrative fine was imposed.

Another crocodile

The same applies to the events of late November 2025, when in Palermo the

Staff from the Customs and Monopolies Agency and officers from the Provincial Command carried out a customs check on a passenger from Palermo arriving from Bangkok via Rome Fiumicino. An inspection of the passenger’s luggage revealed a crocodile’s head, ‘belonging to the species “Crocodylia spp”, which is endangered and listed in Annex B of European Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/160’.

‘The head of the reptile, native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, was dried out and its teeth were visible; and – as the Agency’s report states – at the time of its discovery it was wrapped in a plastic bag, thereby circumventing the checks in Thailand until it reached Palermo airport.”

The passenger was charged but released, whilst the animal’s head was seized, on the grounds of a breach of Article 2, paragraph 1, point (f) of Law 150/1992, punishable by a fine of between twenty thousand and two hundred thousand euros or by imprisonment for a term of between three months and one year.