Quote Originally Posted by Dorsetman View Post
With the UK customs, the whole idea of CITES free is a bit of a joke anyway. The last two importations I made with CITES were 1 - when my boxes were taken away for further investigation and it took a week for them to be found - and I made several journeys up and down the motorways ( at that time, 200 mile round trips), visiting the airport in vain, despite having proper CITES documentation on the outside of them, and 2 - when my importation was "passengers accompanied luggage" - two large boxes , and I had the CITES forms in my hand when I walked through the red channel . The forms ( in the UK they are perforated down both edges, folded zig-zag computer stationary, almost A3 size per page, in five copies,) made a block of paper rather heavy to carry, over one inch thick. ( our stupid regulations at that time needed one CITES application for each different orchid - so that although I ould bring in - say - 1000 plants of Vanda Dr.Anek on a single form, I needed a hundred forms to bring in one each of a hundred Vanda hybrids with different names.
There was no-one in the red channel - no customs officers ( all gone for a quiet fag maybe ? ) so I just walked on and looked for my car... and wondered if I should bother getting CITES at all, if I ever did it again.

I still haven't made up my mind.....but maybe I never will do it again anyway.
Few questions in my mind right now. What year did this happened? Just wondering what happened to the plants in the end for both of your importations?