Crocodile on a plane: Queensland man fined for smuggling reptile from NT

Thirty-five-year-old Hervey Bay man smuggled the reptile in his work boot after purchasing it from Darwin, where it is legal to buy crocodiles

A man who bought a pet crocodile under the Northern Territory's liberal wildlife-purchasing regime fell foul of the law only when trying to smuggle the reptile in his work boot on a plane into Queensland.

The juvenile crocodile, which the man purchased from a Darwin crocodile park, was gravely ill by the time it was uncovered by authorities at Brisbane airport in a cardboard canister, hidden in a work boot inside a suitcase that was stored in the plane's baggage hold.