Wellington: An Indian woman has been fined $400 ($260 US) for bringing cow urine into New Zealand, a media report said.
Border officials fined her after she failed to declare two bottles containing cow urine as part of her luggage after her flight landed here, New Zealand-based 3 News reported on Monday.
“When the officers started to inspect the contents of the luggage, they found two bottles of cow urine for medicinal purposes,” said Antony Owen, a senior official.
Cow urine – medicinal for some, but costly ($400) for the traveller at Welly airport who didn’t declare #biosecurity pic.twitter.com/mDbhmJ8dN4
— MPI (@MPI_NZ) October 4, 2015
The incident took place last month. The incident was reported in the ministry’s monthly report released recently.
Owen said the belief that animal products have healing properties can stop people from thinking they need to declare it.
“We probably get things like this because they are related to culture, religion or traditional medicines. When they fall into that category, that can cloud people’s judgement sometimes in what they’re declaring,” he said.