Cooked pig found in bag of traveler from West African country at Detroit Metro Airport, CBP says
A cooked pig was found in a checked bag of a traveler at Detroit Metro Airport coming in from a West African country, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said Friday.
According to Marty C. Raybon, the director of field operations for the federal agency's Detroit Field Office, the traveler arrived at the Romulus, Michigan, based airport from Togo, which borders Ghana. It wasn't immediately known whether the piece of luggage was transported directly from the African country to DTW.
CBS News Detroit has reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for more information about the incident.
Raybon said pork products are "generally prohibited due to risk of introducing African swine fever in the U.S."
African swine fever is a "contagious and deadly viral swine disease" impacting domestic and feral swine of all ages, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It cannot be transmitted to people, though it could result in pork product shortages.
Federal officials say the disease, which currently has no treatment or vaccine, has never been found in the U.S., though it has spread to countries in Asia, Europe and the Caribbean islands of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
