I was wondering the same. It doesn't seem that customs would know it was empty unless an inspector was looking through the OP's belongings. And if that's the case, then something else triggered the initial search.

Never have seen "Locked Up Abroad" but will have to look for it. While in Australia I watched a similar show, iirc it was based at customs in New Zealand. At any rate, it was entertaining.

Excellent point.

I think it's on National Geographic channel. Mostly seems to involve British twenty-somethings who are offered thousands of pounds and a free ticket and hotel to go someplace and take a package to another country. Imagine their surprise when they do it, and it turns out to be drugs! Of course, it's always their first time as a mule. The most fun is to spot the things in their story that make so little sense that they have to be made up.

These probably aren't future Mensa candidates. :D

Agree that full bags are more interesting to customs, than empty. X-raying most luggage in the world's airports shows empty bags occasionally. More often bags packed with stuff customs make priority of finding.

My favorite line, uttered by a young American women after being transferred to a prison in Peru:

"It wasn't like a prison. It was dirty."

checking empties from Europe to US : no problems
 

Mrs Kahuna and I have been travelling from Europe (Bru) to the US for many, many years now and on all AA flights to the US we have always checked 3 empty hardside suitcases( type samsonite) and 1 with our daily clothing . We never got any problems from checkin staff nor from TSA when rechecking suitcases , nor from customs . On the rare occassions we got a raised eyebrow on the light weight of our big suitcases we told them we came to support the local economy by shopping and loading up for our home . Going back to Europe with 4 fully loaded suitcases we never ever had any problems- apart from having to pay surcharges-:mad: .Only once did an empty suitcase get damaged on the way out in HNL and that time it was a totall write off ( looked as if they parked an interisland plane on top of it ) ; otherwise mostly dents and damages on the way back home passing ORD but always got treated very well and correctly by AA luggage team in BRU when we had the right to ask for compensation for repairs .

Checked an empty, American Tourist hard-sided bag of 1970s vintage on an LAX/DFW route. It was completely destroyed, with both holes and crushes.

Weren't those the ones with the commercials of the gorilla jumping up and down on top of them?

They just don't make bags like those from the '70s any more. The baggage guys must have tried real hard to destroy it.

This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2ZeIoLz8FE

I like this comment about the video

"The owner of the store where i work was the vice president of american tourister when this commerical was made, he said that the gorilla kept breaking the case, so they ended up packing it full of newspapers and welding it shut. That worked. A suitcase is much stronger when packed full."

I think TSA might wonder about the welding though..........

That's it, good find! Classic.

Maybe that was the baggage handler that destroyed tribe_has_spoken's case and the YouTube comment is interesting.

We used to do the same thing. Pack a duffle with toilet paper and one with paper towels when we went to Hawaii. On the way back we filled one with Hawaiian coffee and t-shirts as gifts and put the other empty one in the coffee bag.
I hope this strategy helps.

The surrounding area was unclear, so I could not really determine where this film was shot. JFK?

:cool:

Pick any US airport.

One of our favorite shows. But it has made my wife paranoid...on a recent trip to South Africa, we were going to bring back some Biltong( SA version of beef jerky) and I had it packed in a carry on bag, I was going to eat some as a snack on the plane, but when I got the bag out it was all gone. My wife was scared that it was illegal to bring it back to the US and threw it away at the airport in Jo'burg!