U.S. border officials crackdown on chocolate eggs

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Border officials have a warning for the Easter bunny: Don’t try to hop into the U.S. with certain chocolate eggs containing plastic toys — if you do, they’ll be seized and destroyed.

The Customs and Border Protection agency wants travelers and importers to know that milk chocolate Kinder Surprise eggs are banned in the U.S. because the Consumer Product Safety Commission believes toys inside the eggs pose a choking hazard to kids under 3 years old.

“It seems like last year we started seeing them around Christmas,” CBP spokesman Chris Misson said Tuesday. “Now again leading up to Easter, we just wanted to get the word out that they are prohibited.”

Misson said usually unwitting American or Canadian travelers try to bring the eggs into the U.S. as gifts. “We don’t want to take them if we don’t have to,” he said.

The hollow eggs, roughly the size of a large hen’s eggs, are wrapped in foil and hold various toys, which are packaged in plastic capsules and have small parts that need assembly.

The Ferrero Group of Italy makes Kinder eggs. In the U.S., Ferrero sells Tic Tacs, Nutella hazelnut spread and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

The CBP urges travelers to visit www.cbp.gov to learn about other restrictions on imports into the U.S.

Tags: strangenews, health