Although drug seizures at US Ports of Entry by Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officers are frequently in the news, another important part of their job often goes unnoticed: screening arriving international visitors, luggage, and packages for foreign food forbidden from entry into the United States.
However, an incident late last month involving a CBP officer and her K9 screening passengers at DC's Dulles International Airport did make headlines.
A 70-year-old man arriving from Egypt was so enraged by a CBP K9 sniffing out the 55 pounds of meat he was smuggling that he kicked the 25-pound beagle hard enough to lift him off the ground and bruised the dog's ribs! Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie was swiftly arrested, charged with a federal crime (to which he pled guilty), ordered to pay the dog's veterinary bills, and deported two days after he attacked the CBP K9.
The dog - a five-year-old beagle named "Freddie"- fully recovered and has since returned to duty as part of the CBP's "Beagle Brigade."
(Incidentally, in addition to the meat the Egyptian man was trying to smuggle into the country, CBP Agents also found 44 pounds of rice, 15 pounds of eggplant, cucumbers, and bell peppers, two pounds of corn seeds, and a pound of herbs in his luggage. All of the food was prohibited from entering the U.S.)
That seizure at Dulles (aside from the attack on the dog) is not all that unusual at US Ports of Entry. Last year, the CBP prevented 402,869 attempts to bring forbidden animal products (mostly meat) into the United States.
Some of the beef bootleggers CBP officers catch are repeat offenders, particularly at the Southern Border, where cheap (non-USDA inspected) Mexican meat can be resold to US consumers at a significant profit.
The 300-pound load of meat pictured above was seized in El Paso on May 8, 2025, from a 61-year-old repeat food smuggler who previously paid a $1,000 fine for trying to drive 30 rolls of bologna into the US from Juarez, Mexico.
This time, he was caught with an even larger haul consisting of 275 pounds of bologna, 17.6 pounds of pork ham, and seven pounds of pork chorizo hidden throughout his vehicle.
In addition to food products that have not undergone USDA inspection, CBP Officers also encounter people trying to smuggle exotic game meat into the US, sometimes harvested from endangered species. In late May of this year, the CBP intercepted almost 28 pounds of illegal sea turtle meat that a passenger arriving at Dulles from Nicaragua packed in their luggage.
Last December, CBP Officers at Chicago O'Hare International Airport stopped a passenger from Nigeria from bringing two pounds of "bushmeat" into the country. The meat was found to have been harvested from "grasscutters," which are large rodents.
Sometimes, forbidden agricultural products are smuggled into the US while still alive, in the form of plants, insects, & poultry.
The photos above show a prohibited food load seized from a would-be smuggler attempting to cross into Laredo, Texas, from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on May 4, 2025.
CBP agents first encountered two live chickens and 30 raw eggs before also finding a bag filled with what the smuggler believed were 100 live "jumiles" (insects that are a traditional food in the state of Guerrero, Mexico), but what the CBP identified as "chinch bugs," which can severely damage US crops.
This uninspected food smuggling shipment also contained mangos, hog plums, and Mexican Mamey fruit.
Some smuggled shipments look like something out of a horror movie. The photo above is of meat smuggled into Detroit's airport from the West African nation of Togo in March 2025. It consisted of "partially dried" goat meat with intact jawbones & tongues. (Yuck!)
The CBP says smuggling attempts like this are especially dangerous because they might introduce foreign animal diseases that could devastate US livestock if they are not stopped from entering the country.
Are you surprised at how many "forbidden foods" smugglers attempt to sneak into the US?
Share your opinion in the comments to this article.
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
That's a real horror show! Thanks for keeping us informed.
Holy moly, Jack! Who eats this stuff? My question is, do grocery stores buy these creepy food stuff? YIKES! Thank you, Jack for great information.