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© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.American man attempts to smuggle meth disguised as Snickers candy bars to Japan
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supermonk7
Lucky for him he wasn't caught by Japanese customs.
ebisen
Was pretty stupid to conceal it as Snickers. It's a very common candy in Japan, and not suitable as a good omiyage.
nath
What the hell dude.
Frungy
Well done to the U.S. customs for such tight controls. It would have been a major disgrace if he'd been caught entering Japan with that.
... although I still think that the only fair punishment would be to make him eat the poison he was so prepared to sell to others.
oldsanno
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/07/meth_candy_bar_chocolate_bust_lax_rogelio_mauricio_harris.php
Not the first military to do this and won't be the last..
A+b/a=a/b≡?
He is not military. He is a civilian.
smithinjapan
Good on US customs for nailing him, and I guess lucky for him he was nailed there and not here.
Josh_Henry
What an idiot! The plan was stupid to begin with but it would have made more sense to throw real Snickers bars into the mix, perhaps 30 real Snickers bars and 15 fakes, so it's more likely they would grab a real one and I doubt they'll search them all.
ultradork
Boarding Bad....
cwhite
haha, fortunately most criminals are dumb
nath
Too bad he wasn't caught in Japan... He'll probably only get probation in the U.S., he would have been facing 10 hard years of jail time in Japan.
Ms. Alexander
What an idiot! And to think he actually thought nobody would question 45 snickers in his luggage! One or two might be "normal" but 45?! Come on!!
ReformedBasher
Which is what drug dealers deserve, at least for hard drugs. Or go the extra step and execute them, absolutely no sympathy from me.
xbauer2002
Actually, Ch1n4Sailor, average sentences in Japan are much lower than in the United States. This, coupled with a very low rate of recidivism, accounts for the fact that Japan has less than 70.000 people incarcerated at any given time while the figure tops two million in the United States.
my2sense
Roppongi will be a bit calmer for a few weeks.
moonknightskye
looks yummy! yum yumm
Wakarimasen
3 Good| Bad FrungyJul. 31, 2012 - 12:49PM JST
Well done to the U.S. customs for such tight controls. It would have been a major disgrace if he'd been caught entering Japan with that.
... although I still think that the only fair punishment would be to make him eat the poison he was so prepared to sell to others.
A major disgrace???? Japan is awash with meth and other uppers......
ExportExpert
The guy is an idiot - snickers
Vernie Jefferies
Way to go and not looking suspicious with the quantity, and also carrying something that's sold in Japan....FAIL
nath
well it is a good thing that he got caught there. he maybe mr. snickers in japan..................
corner-of-my-eye
Like a few of the above posters said, what the hell was he thinking to choose snickers?? you can buy them here for chrissakes, i'd have been suspicious too. moron. mars bars and he might just have pulled it off.
Stephen Jez
Um, selective reading much? Says he was in the Navy, meaning he was not in the Navy anymore.
I know how some of the users on this site like to bash the US military but come on.
SwissToni
Come on Stephen Jez, don't be so sensitive. The US military are only people, there's good ones and bad ones. The other article does say he was less than honourably discharged.
whiskeysour
45 Snickers bars ???????
What a tool ! ! !
Idiot
whiskeysour
I tried to bring a small carton of orange juice and the customs people FLIPPED out.
When they saw 45 candy bars i can imagine them going ape sh!t crazy !!!!
Ewan Huzarmy
I remember when snickers were called 'Metheron' in the U.K .
ThonTaddeo
Ebisen and Corner, indeed, Snickers are a terrible choice because you can get them in Japan easily. I've brought far more than 45 of other candies like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfinger because they don't sell them in Japan and they make great omiyage for friends and co-workers. It's not very suspicious to carry dozens of them, because either you're giving them away or you're buying a supply big enough to last until your next trip abroad, which could be a year away.
In fact, I'd be pretty indignant if someone on the American side questioned me about leaving the country with dozens of candy bars or other snacks. Sorry, Ms. Alexander, but some people stock up on these things when they go overseas.
lucabrasi
And I remember when they were called "Marathon." :)
Serrano
Heck, Snickers Bars pack a powerful a kick, and they're legal!
Lowly
Do US customs know whether a candy is common in this or that country? I think they just saw a lot of something, had a suspicion and knowledge of how smugglers operate and did a check.
I laughed it's amphetamines, though. Amphetamines were actually invented here and used to be fed to gov workers in certain jobs and especially truck drivers back in the 50s to keep on going. It is probably the easiest to find drug here and can be made in home chem labs. To make it in America and risk importing it, dumb. I guess if you can make money on it it doenst matter, but still...
nath
I would of gone for the Willy Wanker Bar.....
ExportExpert
Dunno exactly and cant put my finger on it but something here screams Nut Bar.
WhenThingsGoBoing
Who's snickerin' now?
Jay Que
What would you do for a klondike bar?
Triumvere
That's one hell of a candy bar.
gelendestrasse
too bad he wasn't caught trying to get into Malaysia...
mtwildman
He's done but who was his Japan contact?
ReformedBasher
I'm hoping the people giving me thumbs down are doing it because they are humanitarians which I can respect.
But if they support hard drugs, well, they're losers as far as I'm concerned. Grass etc, okay. But even then, don't let it rule your life.
Nessie
Put it in wine bottles.
I always bring in extra wine, and I tell the customs people how much. Not only is the customs charge just 100 yen after the third bottle, but they have never even bother opening my bag to check how many bottles I have. It would be easy to slip past them with "fortified" wine.
An x-ray on the US end might catch it, though.
Jaymann
They should just legalise all drugs and control them through pharmaceutical companies and tax offices. The amount of 'legal highs' now available (even in Japan) is staggering. Better to use our policing resources elsewhere and free up the billions spent internationally pretending to 'control' a situation that no one actually has any political desire to control anyway.
Instead we incarcerate 1000s who succumb to monetary greed and further line the pockets of the drug cartels who prey on the financially desperate.
The solution to this "problem" has been known for years - lets enact it.
As for someone knowingly smuggling through customs (whilst I feel sorry that a heavy punishment will follow what is essentially just supplying a recreational drug) - you knew the possible outcome was incarceration... I guess you have no one to blame but yourself.
Jaymann
@ Nessie - interesting. Suspending a drug in a solution is very popular today actually. Any high school chemist could then extract the drug from the liquid mixture. But you would only really be talking about personal use, or a small profit. Not really useful for the large-scale criminals who need to shift bulk.
Lowly
Is this like reese's peanut butter cups? Two great tastes that go great together?
Badge213
Someone carrying 45 bars of snickers onboard an international flight is just asking to be checked.
nandakandamanda
Chocolate would have melted in Tokyo in this heat.
Anyway, he was probably on his way to a third country where they don't really check people arriving from Japan.
Nessie
10 bottles of wine could be used to smuggle in more than 10kg.
nath
Should have let him fly and then make a phone call. But two minutes into the flight, tell him he got nailed!
nath
@Nessie >But you would only really be talking about personal use, or a small profit.
Come on Personal use. If his name was Keith Richards yes.... Small profit.???? Many years of Engrish teaching wraped around chocolate and nougat there.......
Nessie
You misread my comment, Chris.
nath
Ok Maybe I did.. You were talking about one bottle that was spoken about before??? Sorry...
CHAMADE
I bring in bags of "Atomic Fire Balls". With the stunningly strong cinnamon centers that melt your tongue!
ExportExpert
jaymann meth is not a recreational drug in no way, it is the worst of all the hard drugs highly addictive and very very destructive, anyone using this stuff will suffer mental issues become paranoid, aggressive, depressed and physcotic.
It destroys peoples lives faster than any other of the hard 3 drugs, coke, heroin and lsd and turns nice people mean bad and ugly very quickly.
meth is a terrbile drug and anyone distrubuting it for gain needs to be taken out of society.
gelendestrasse
I have to agree that the consequences of meth abuse are terrible. It should never be legalized. I do wonder, if other drugs were legalized would that reduce the demand for meth?
Badge213
Investigation shouldn't end. What was his final destination in Japan? Or was he connecting through Japan to elsewhere in Asia. If Japan was he planning on meeting with someone else, does he have a distribution network in Japan, he probably has a connection in Japan somewhere. It's harder to just get off a plane with a bunch of drugs by yourself without a network who to go to to sell those drugs.