They must be bananas! Family caught trying to smuggle fruit

1. A family attempting to smuggle a large haul of fruit, nuts and plants that were potentially carrying economythreatening toxic fruit flies were thwarted by a keennosed sniffer dog. The Perth family were flying home from Sydney when they tried to get 68 bananas, 15 mangoes, six kilograms of betel nuts, two kilograms of plant material, two pineapples, three plants and seven ginger bulbs past biosecurity officers at the Perth Domestic Airport. They were stopped by a keen-nosed sniffer dog and his handler. Travellers are prohibited from fruit taking into Western Australia (WA.).

2. Numerous bags full of fruit, nuts and other plant items were found in the family's possession. A written warning was given to the family as it was their first offence, and the fruit disposed of in a 'deep burial'. Department of Agriculture and Food WA Border Biosecurity acting director Lloyd Mason told Daily Mail Australia that in all the fruit confiscated totalled around 42KG. He also said the intercepted items - which could carry pests like the destructive Queensland fruit fly - was the largest haul made by a dog unit in three years. 'The items posed a considerable quarantine risk to our valuable agricultural industries and could have spread a range of unwanted pests and diseases,' a press
release quoted him as saying.

3. Bananas and mangoes are known carriers of the Queensland fruit fly, which WA suffered an outbreak of last November. The state had been one of only three in the country free of the fruit fly before it was discovered in Perth. That outbreak - which damaged the state's economy, was most likely caused by fruit carrying the pests crossing borders, it was reported. One infected fruit was all it took to cause an outbreak, Mr Mason said. Queensland fruit flies are not the only pest which bananas and mangoes can host. They also carry the Mediterranean fruit fly - a damaging species already in WA, and many other plant pests.

[adapted from an article on the Daily Mail website http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409481/Family-caught-trying-smugglemangoes- bananas-pineapples-Sydney-Perth.html]

The family lived