An American Lion

Sometimes you get away with it—and reap untold rewards.

Sometimes, Johnny Law gets up in your business and thwarts your best efforts:

In an apparently cold-blooded attempt at smuggling, a Lomita man was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport this week with more than a dozen wriggling lizards strapped to his chest.

Michael Plank, 40, was detained by U.S. Customs agents after they discovered 15 live lizards stuffed into his money belt, officials with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said Friday.

Plank was returning from Australia on Tuesday when agents found two geckos, 11 skinks and two monitor lizards in his possession. Australian reptiles are strictly regulated, and Plank didn’t have a required export permit, officials said.

The lizards are valued at $8,500.

Smuggling wildlife into the U.S. is a felony punishable by a $250,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison. Plank has been released on a $10,000 bond and will be arraigned Dec. 21 in a Los Angeles federal court, authorities said.

I say, next time, we just let him go. Smuggling lizards is its own harsh reality. I’ve only engaged in it  few times, but that was in the late 1980s when my boys had a thing for monitor lizards. I was able to get fourteen of them into the country, but we lost one when I had to shake my leg at the airport urinal.