Kinder Surprise smuggling ring: Three women arrested after tunnel filled with chocolate eggs is discovered in Canada
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Version 0 of 1. Three Canadian women are being held in a Seattle detention centre after border officials discovered an extensive Kinder Egg smuggling ring and seized more than 6,000 chocolate eggs filled with tiny toys. Melanie Russet, Marg Spooner and Lynn Dodwell were found coming out of a tunnel stretching from Abbotsford, British Columbia, in Canada, to a shed across the border in Clearbrook, Washington, carrying trays of the chocolate by police. Kinder Eggs are popular in Canada but are illegal in the US because the small plastic toys are considered to be choking hazards under a 1938 ban on inedible toys being placed inside sweets. The fondness for the confectionery has seen a profitable black market emerge over the years. An estimated 800,000 eggs are smuggled across the border annually, CBS News reports. Dale Lawson said he discovered the tunnel when he was walking his dog Buster, who emerged from a “weird looking shed” with chocolate in his mouth and a plastic capsule. He told CBS News: "I thought maybe it was drugs but when I opened it up it was a little plastic fox dressed like a queen. I called the police right away." Police arrived just as the three women were coming out of the tunnel and arrested them at the scene. Authorities later discovered a 500 ft tunnel they believe was used to smuggle the eggs across the border. In March, a US company developed a new way of potentially selling the chocolate by casing the toy in a plastic capsule with a thick ridge that separates the two hollow chocolate halves. |