Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stopped a man traveling from Togo with an entire cooked pig in his checked luggage after he stepped off a flight at Detroit Metro Airport earlier this week.
CBP Director of Field Operations at the Michigan airport, Marty C. Raybon, shared an image of the pig, which had been wrapped up in a black plastic bag, in a post on his official X account.
TASTE OF HOME: A traveler arriving from Togo was found to have packed an entire cooked pig in their checked bag at #DetroitMetroAirport. Pork products are generally prohibited due to risk of introducing African swine fever in the U.S.
— CBP Director of Field Operations Marty C. Raybon (@DFODetroit) May 8, 2026
Learn more 👉 https://t.co/9Gn1R35rUk pic.twitter.com/FlP5B6JjEI
Although there are no direct flights from Togo, a small West African country sandwiched between Ghana and Benin, and Detroit, presumably the man had transited through an airport where customs checks aren’t required.
For example, Air France flies from Togo’s capital, Lomé, to Paris, where the man could have caught an onward flight to Detroit. His bag would have been checked through to his final destination and not subject to customs checks in France.
On arrival in Detroit, however, the man was pulled for secondary screening, where the whole cooked pig was discovered.
Raybon points out that “pork products are generally prohibited due to risk of introducing African swine fever in the U.S.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while African swine fever is harmless to humans, it is a contagious and deadly virus to pigs. So far, the U.S. has avoided any outbreaks of African Swine Fever on its shores, and the USDA says it wants to keep it that way.
While the USDA and CBP do allow canned pork and commercially packaged, shelf-stable baked goods containing pork into the U.S., all other pork products are prohibited.
A whole cooked pig is a fairly unusual find, although it’s not that rare for travelers from West Africa to bring with them local delicacies for friends and family when they are traveling abroad.
One of the more common ‘imports’ is dried fish, which is not regulated by the USDA, even if it can pose a bit of a smell challenge for some passengers.
