A Hong Kong man was apparently caught trying to smuggle two bottles of sperm into the city from mainland China on Monday afternoon. And here we were, thinking we’d seen all the weird smuggling cases Hong Kong had to offer (meat strollers, cocaine dragonfruit, and meth bras, to name a few).
The man was stopped for a “random check” by quarantine officers at Lo Wu Control Point, Ming Pao reports. In his bag they found two 100-millilitre bottles containing a “translucent white liquid”, which the man said was human semen, wrapped in a thawed ice pack.
When questioned, he told officers he was being paid to deliver the precious cargo to a fertility clinic… like a cum courier, if you will.
Customs confiscated the bottles after he was unable to produce any official documents from the Department of Health or evidence of a quarantine examination.
The Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance requires anyone importing excreta, secretion, blood, or blood components to first obtain a letter of permission from the Director of Health, which our spunk smuggler certainly did not have.
Under the Code of Practice on Reproductive Technology & Embryo Research, only licensed reproductive technology centres can transport gametes and embryos, and they must comply with stringent regulations on packaging and labelling to ensure the samples’ safety. So… not an ice pack turned puddle, then.
OB/GYN Dr. Kun Ka-yan told Ming Pao that erratic temperature conditions could cause the semen to be contaminated with bacteria. If used in artificial insemination, it could infect the uterus, leading to intrauterine inflammation, pelvic inflammation, or even infertility.
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