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Woman Caught Smuggling 44 iPhones In Her Stockings
An anonymous reader writes "A woman in her 60s was recently apprehended by Israeli airport security when she tried to smuggle 44 iPhone 4s into Israel by hiding them in her stockings under traditional Georgian garb. From the article: 'Upon being approached by security personnel, the woman claimed she wasn’t feeling well whereupon airport security offered to accompany her. But first, she had to pass through a full body scanner. It was then the authorities found buried underneath layers of traditional garb that the woman was carrying at least 44 iPhones on her person.'"
Is this digg now?
Unfortunately, frequent travelers through customs in Israel know that it is not unusual to see people being detained for bringing all kinds of undeclared items into the country.
The reason that it is more prevalent in Israel than many other countries (yes, no source for this besides personal and hearsay experience) is the same as the reason that security lines in Israel are faster than any other airport I have been to: Israeli security guards are heavily trained in the art of behavioral profiling.
Just an example: Lets say I am a college student flying in/out of the country. They ask me a few questions (as they do for everyone), decide that I am not suspicious and let me go through the express security lines. If they have any suspicions about anything at all, your bags go through the 3D X-ray machines and you get to have a short one-on-one chat with a security officer. The same goes for customs: If you are in the Green line they are watching you and will stop you. They are very good at finding the people who are trying to hid something.
(I am having a really hard time finding the study that I read comparing the effectiveness and methods of various customs agencies around the world. It was probably around two years ago which makes it harder to find in the mess of search results about this iPhone smuggler.)
Hell, I was detained by being a single guy who had recently passed through Syria. I then had to wait for a couple of hours while they ran an Interpol check on me. This is despite me being a white fella from New Zealand (the closest we get to exporting terrorism is the hordes of drunk teens who go on their 'overseas experience').