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Airport inspection reveals smuggled songbirds

This undated photo provided by the Department of Justice shows detained suspect Sony Dong with songbirds strapped to his legs at Los Angeles International Airport.

This undated photo provided by the Department of Justice shows detained suspect Sony Dong with songbirds strapped to his legs at Los Angeles International Airport.

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Prosecutors say a traveler tried smuggling songbirds into the United States by strapping more than a dozen birds to his legs and trying to walk out of Los Angeles International Airport.

Sony Dong and another man were charged Tuesday with conspiracy in an eight-count federal indictment. Messages left with their public defenders weren’t immediately returned.

The U.S. attorney’s office says Dong was held over for inspection at the airport when he returned from Vietnam earlier this month. Prosecutors say he had bird feathers and droppings on his socks, and birds’ tail feathers peeking out from under his pants.

Three red-whiskered bul-buls, four magpie robins and six shama thrush were among the birds that are now in quarantine. More birds were found in a Southern California home.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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