- Is that illegal wildlife in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?
Smugglers are infamous for the creative solutions they employ when illicitly transporting goods across borders. They might build hidden compartments into suitcases, swallow their dirty goods, or build a homemade submarine to transport them.
Or they might just stuff them down their pants, as this guy did.
Alberto Castillo was recently arrested in Miami after arriving from Cuba. He was allegedly attempting to smuggle prohibited birds into the country through an unconventional method.
He had attached them to his underwear.
At customs, Castillo reported that he was carrying nothing of interest and had nothing to declare. However, the customs agents’ eyes were drawn to what they described as an “unexplained bulge” in his pants.
In a scenario that some people probably have sweet dreams about, the agents asked Castillo to drop his pants so they could take a closer look. Instead of a pocket rocket, the customs officials discovered 10 birds stuffed into plastic tubes, all hanging from Castillo’s underwear.
Castillo was arrested and is facing charges of smuggling goods into the country.
Nothing to Declare
The incident happened on October 4 at Miami International Airport in Florida. Castillo, who is a Cuban national and a legal permanent U.S. resident, had just returned from the country of his birth with a suitcase and a fanny bag in tow.
Proceeding to document check, Castillo told the border agents that he had flown to Havana to visit his family. Perhaps something smelled fishy or it was a random pick, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents called Castillo for a secondary screening.
In the inspection room, they handed Castillo a binding legal document to declare everything he was bringing into the country. He claimed that he was carrying nothing of interest, only his suitcase and fanny bag.
Most importantly, he checked “no” in the box asking whether he was bringing animals or wildlife into the U.S.
Afterward, the customs agents asked him routine travel questions, and Castillo repeated his story of visiting family. By all accounts, that should’ve been it.
Noticing the Bulge
However, something had caught the customs officers’ attention. They couldn’t help but notice the large bulge in Castillo’s pants.
That sounds pervy, but the officials weren’t gauging the size of Castillo’s manhood. They were more interested in the bulge’s odd shape and the man’s anxious reaction to the agents’ eyes traveling south of his waistline.
“During the interview, CBP officers observed an unexplained bulge on the front of [Castillo’s] pelvis/waist area and noted that he appeared nervous,” the customs agency reported according to Local 10 News.
It’s no crime for a man to be well hung, but not everything seemed right to the agents. So, they fulfilled what is undoubtedly someone’s fantasy and proceeded to give Castillo a thorough pat-down due to his large bulge.
Birds in Underwear Tubes
Perhaps to their disappointment, the customs officials didn’t find a generously sized love cannon in Castillo’s pants. Instead, they discovered strange plastic tubes fixed to his undies.
“The pat-down revealed that [Castillo] was concealing six cylindrical clear plastic containers, each wrapped in tape with some black meshed material affixed near the openings,” wrote the CBP.
“The tubes were then sewn into [his] underwear. Each tube contained live birds,” the agency added.
In total, the CBP found 10 birds stuffed into the tubes and then into Castillo’s pants. Eight of the birds were yellow-faced grassquits, while the remaining two were blue grosbeaks.
Both birds, native to the Caribbean and Mexico, are common in the international animal black market. Although they’re not endangered, they are protected, and removing them from their natural habitats is illegal.
After the birds were discovered, Castillo claimed that they were for his “personal use.” I’m not going to speculate what possible personal use his underwear birds could have.
However, the CBP agents pointed out that he had not submitted the appropriate paperwork to import animals into the U.S. Never mind that; he had just blatantly lied on the customs declaration form he filled out just moments ago.
With that, they arrested Castillo. He was released after posting a $25,000 bail, but he has been charged with smuggling goods into the U.S.
The charge could earn him a 20-year prison sentence. That’s according to a nearly identical case from November 2025, when Jesse Martinez was busted with illegal parakeets in his pants.
At the time, Martinez claimed the sizable bulge in his pants was his “pirrin.” That being Spanish slang for penis.
For more outlandish illegal animal trading, check out these 5 bizarre attempts to smuggle animals.