Giant squash in smuggled stash found at Birmingham Airport
Airport staff were stunned when they seized an illegal stash of smuggled vegetables and found this giant squash -?? weighing a whopping four stone.
Customs officers at Birmingham Airport were left baffled when they found a package sent from Bangladesh bursting with the super-sized squash on Monday.
The 4ft long monster -?? which weighs the same as a small child -?? was confiscated by environmental health officials probing a consignment of illegal food stuffs from Asia.
As well as the massive vegetable, which tipped the scales at 60lbs, officers also seized 175lbs (79kg) of fish and 94,000 illegally-imported cigarettes.
The container had been destined for a shop food retailer in Birmingham from India, which is the one of the world'??s biggest producers of the vegetable. A spokesman for Solihull Council said the unusual find by their environmental team was '??not something they came across every day'??.
He added: â??The rather unusual giant squash was found illegally imported at Birmingham Airport by our environmental health food safety team.
â??It is a bit of a rare find, as you can imagine we do get cigarettes a lot, but not a squash, especially not one of this size.â?
â??It is quite a funny picture of the environmental health worker next to it as it is almost the same size as her.
â??As you can imagine, it was extremely heavy and we estimated it weighed up to 60lbs which is clearly abnormal for a vegetable.
â??I doubt we will find another one of these but you never know what people will try and get through.
â??The item has now been seized.â?
Also amongst the haul were 2,000lbs (907kg) of illegally imported betel leaves which are used as a mild stimulant and can be chewed or smoked.
The leaves, which are mostly used in Asian countries have been suspended by the EU following concerns over the presence of salmonella in the product.
The council spokesman added: â??Many of the boxes of leaves were mis-labelled or packed at the rear of the consignment.
â??Some of the leaves have been sent to a laboratory for analysis.â?
An average-sized squash is usually around 12 inches in length and weighs 1.5lbs in weight.
