“Florida Man” takes a break this week and allows his snow-bird colleague from New York City to answer the question: “Is that a snake in your pants…?”
The New Yorker was arrested and charged for attempting to cross the US-Canadian border while smuggling three Burmese pythons in his pants.
Burmese pythons are one of the largest snakes in the world and are considered to be a highly valuable species in Asia — from where it originates — but a highly invasive, nuisance species in Florida, where they pose a serious threat to the region’s ecosystem, native animals, and even small pets.
NY man tried to smuggle 3 snakes across U.S.-Canadian border in his pants, feds say https://t.co/DM1kuz438J
— syracuse.com (@syracusedotcom) October 5, 2022
In fact, the state of Florida offers cash prizes to hunt and kill pythons in the Everglades.
Calvin Bautista, 36, currently stands accused of smuggling the three snakes in his pants while riding a bus that crossed from Canada into New York in the middle of July of 2018. The importation of Burmese pythons is strictly regulated by both federal regulations and an international treaty. According to both, they are listed as “injurious to human beings.”
For this reason, it’s obviously not recommended that they be transported inside one’s pants.
According to the office of U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman who issued a press release on Bautista, the Queens man was arraigned on Tuesday in Albany, New York’s capitol city, faced federal smuggling charges, and was released pending trial,
Bautista’s lawyer has not yet responded to an email request from The Associated Press.
According to federal prosecutors the New Yorker with the alleged trouser snake faces potential charges which include a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine that could be as much as $250,000.
