chennai air customs seized 9000 baby tortoises from a passenger who arrived from kuala lumpur by a malaysian airlines flight on tuesday the consignment was handed over to the forest officials while r narayanan from kolathur who tried to smuggle in the reptiles claiming that they were packaged food was fined around 1500 tortoises died because they had been kept in three bags for more than 10 hours narayanan had bought the tortoises each three inches in size from china forest officials told customs that the tortoises were an exotic species and would not survive for more than 15 hours inside bags customs sleuths intercepted narayanan when he tried to walk through green channel with three bags he insisted that he had nothing to declare he told us that the bags contained packaged food we opened the bags and found the tortoises inside plastic bags when questioned he told us he had bought them in china and was bringing them as pets said a customs official customs seized the tortoises as exotic species are not allowed to be brought from abroad the large number indicates that they may have been brought for commercial purposes he said exotic species do not come under wildlife protection act and not much action can be taken against the passenger forest officials have quarantined the tortoises and have not identified the species