In hunters traveling abroad they are generally very well informed on the procedures for entering shot game in the Italian territory but it often happens that someone may think they are smarter than others.
November 8, 2011 - Yesterday morning, November 7, the Investigative Unit of the Environmental and Forestry Police (NIPAF) of the State Forestry Corps, together with personnel from the Customs Agency and the Guardia di Finanza seconded at the “F. Fellini ”in Rimini, carrying out the normal control procedures, discovered a group of hunters who were trying to smuggle five hundred woodcocks killed in Ukraine into Italy illegally.
Le woodcocks, specially packaged in freezer-type plastic bags, had been hidden by hunters inside the dog cages in a sub-base obtained in the base.
The group of hunters, forty-one from all over Italy, they were returning from Simferopol airport after a hunt for Woodcock in the Crimea, in Ukrainian territory; the hunters also brought their hunting dogs housed in special cages during the trip.
At the Rimini airport, the customs subjected both the hunters, with their baggage and weapons, and the dog cages and nineteen of these to the necessary checks. have been modified by obtaining a double bottom in the base for the specific purpose of concealing the garments killed without subjecting them to the necessary checks.
In fact, animals from abroad, both alive and dead, before being introduced into the Italian territory they must undergo a series of veterinary checks in order to avoid any possible introduction of diseases that can infect our local avian fauna; therefore the Veterinary Service of the Rimini AUSL collaborated in the operation.
The woodcocks were obviously seized and the hunters were charged with administrative sanctions for a total of approximately 280 thousand euros.