Seems a bit risky to me...

Given the propensity of officialdom to react inappropriately to such things, I rather think that if I had discovered a tin full of someone's dope in MY bag, I'd have dumpstered it pronto without calling anyone, least of all the police. And made sure my fingerprints were well erased into the bargain.

It seems to me that calling the cops to tell them someone else's controlled item is in one's suitcase means running a significant risk of encountering a Keystone Kops reaction and ending up in jail oneself. There's no shortage of examples...

<no totle>

Of course suicide is an honorable way to atone for a crime or scandal. And don't forget folks, if you have decided to leave this mortal coil anytime soon, you are entitled to one free scandal before you go :-D

Good to know

Well at least now I know that if I ever wanted to bring cannabis through Tokyo airport, sniffer dogs can't find it when its enclosed in a small metal box.

Re: Good thing

StopthePropaganda: 'that the passenger wasn't headed to Saudi Arabia or somewhere where the penalty for smuggling drugs can be death. No appeal, no chance to call anyone or to try to find where the dope came from...scary.'

They did mention it was an inbound rather than outbound passenger.

Suicide?

Suicide... must be the lethal skunk

lock your bag

I know they tell you not to, but until i can personally trust every single person in an airport, then i will take my chances with my trustly little padlock. At least then if customs want a look, you know about it.

Reminds me........

of when a well known airline cargo warehouse gave me 2 large wooden boxes by mistake (they should have given me an envelope only) for delivery to London. I took them home that night for delivery next day. Read the manifests and it had "for collection by Brinks Mat" written on it and an invoice showing 1/2 million £ of jewellery for Cartiers in London. The cargo firm did not even take my name or details. Next day there was some urgent phone calls and I took the boxes back .

@lock your bag

If I understand correctly, you are supposed to use the kind of lock they can open without your key, otherwise they'll just break it.

Consequences

And what if that passenger happened to be on his way to Thailand?

Transfer Passengers

There is no good reason for civilised human beings to visit Islamic dictatorships.

Anybody who does knows they are dicing with death.

@Transfer Passengers

Just as there is no good reason for civilised human beings to visit co-called "democratic" dictatorships, such as the US.

Anyone who does knows they are dicing with intrusive search, random detention, torture and imprisonment for daring to look different.

There is no good reason for civilised human beings to visit Islamic dictatorships.

There is no good reason for civilised human beings to visit Islamic dictatorships.

Um ok replace it with Malaysia or Thailand.

Re: "What if he was being transferred?"

When you fly, you have a destination tag on your checked bags. Intermediate destinations are also listed, but the BIG BOLD ONE is your final destination. They picked a bag whose final destination was Tokyo. It's really not all that hard...

@mark boothroyd

Transit passengers baggage often goes through customs, especially if they are laying over. The flight might have been inboud to the airport. That does not mean that all of the passengers where ending their journey at that airport.

Re: "What if he was being transferred?"

Or indeed Singapore

@Re: "What if he was being transferred?"

The customs guy expected the dog to find the stash, so maybe his selection of an inbound bag was just luck.

On touring

"Intermediate destinations are also listed...They picked a bag whose final destination was Tokyo"

So it's possible the drugs could have been undetected for a few days and then the tourist hopped on a *different flight* with *different tickets*. Hmm? Arrival at Singapore Airport leading to detection by competent dogs and incarceration.

Lesson: lock your bags and search them yourself before you get on the next flight.

Prices...

To everyone who keeps commenting on how expensive this looks have you ever stop to consider that in a different country, say a country were the penalty for possession is more severe, it may be priced differently? No? I thought you hadn't.

Re: Re: Good thing

"They did mention it was an inbound rather than outbound passenger"

If it was a randomly-selected suitcase, wasn't this pure luck? I suppose it could have been an area with only inbound passengers, I don't spend a lot of time in airports (thankfully). But really, I doubt they were thinking of this in the first place - they were making the stupid assumption that they'd immediately get it back. While at the same time saying that they wanted to improve the sniffer dog's abilities, which implies that they knew it wasn't 100%, which implies a risk of the dog not finding it.

Send the idiots down for distribution of narcotics or whatever the charge is. I assume it's legal for police to carry drugs around in circumstances like this but it can't possibly be legal for them to then randomly hand it out to Junichiro Q Berogusu.

Inbound or outbound - IT DOESN'T MATTER

Even if they did plant the dope ON PURPOSE on and INCOMING passenger's bag. That doesn't mean the person could not get into trouble. In fact it says that the person who discovered this dope in their bag, was staying in a hotel in Tokyo, that they had come from Hong Kong. If they did stay in a hotel, most likely the person does not live in Japan. What if this had been a Singaporean or Thai business traveler coming to Tokyo for business, very stressed out, with a very tight schedule, not enough time to bother checking the bag thoroughly. What if they had traveled back with the dope still in the bag. What if the sniffer dogs at Narita still failed to find the dope on the way out as well? What if the sniffer dogs in Singapore or Bangkok then found the dope when the poor sod arrives there?

This is simply unnacceptable. The customs officer should be fired for this to make a statement for all the other customs officers never even to dream to attempt this stunt ever again. I live in Tokyo and I frequently travel to Singapore. This scares the shit out of me. I am really upset about this.

Hmm another thought

What it if the poor sod has a prior drug conviction or criminal record .

@ Philip Perry

Japan is a US colony, with fewer rights than Guam and Puerto Rico, but a US colony nevertheless, just in case you missed that. I know, because I have been living in this colony for 2 decades. Even many Japanese say so openly.

and in other news

20 grammes? what do you mean you only found 15 grammes? There was at least 10 grammes in there.

You would understand

If you lived in Japan. The Japanese almost always hand things in. They are very very honest about almost everything. There is very little crime there unless you count bicycle theft, running red lights (but only for the first couple of seconds, mind you) and the Yakuza. All par for the course.