Customs officials have caught a female traveller after she tried to smuggle 11 chameleons concealed in the pockets of her coat.

CCTV footage from Huanggang Customs in China’s eastern province of Hubei. Showed the unnamed woman passing through the Futian Checkpoint station after arriving from Hong Kong shortly before she was caught on 4th March.

Latter scenes of the video depicted customs agents taking the 11 seized chameleons in a plastic box and putting them back.

The seizure followed after customs supervising incoming passengers at the checkpoint noticed the woman evading eye contact and hastily walking with a long black coat draped over her arm.

Suspecting she was a smuggler, they brought her aside, searched her belongings. And puzzled when they discovered the reptiles in the pocket of her coat.

The chameleons reportedly concealed in two plastic bags wrapped with tape. Customs immediately apprehended the woman.

Huanggang Customs said in a statement obtained by AsiaWire. “Recently, after being assessed by professional organisations, it was determined that the 11 live reptiles previously seized by Huanggang Customs. At the Futian Port entry channel were all specimens of protected species commonly known as ‘chameleons’.

“These chameleons are listed as species under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).”