Kinder Eggs as Dangerous as Heroin?

Are you jonesing for a delicious chocolate egg containing a prize? Fine. Just don't try bringing your filthy habit across the border:

The popular German chocolate eggs are not sold in the U.S. because they are considered a choking hazard. They are also banned because the treats are considered adulterated food by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Sweeney said a border guard told him and his husband that they could be fined $2,500 per egg, and then ordered them to head to the port of entry, where they waited for more than two hours.

“We really didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “I didn’t know if maybe this was some really important thing that I just wasn’t aware of and they were going to actually give us the fine of $15,000.”

But once inside, Sweeney said border staff later brushed off the offence and merely told them never to bring the Kinder Surprise eggs across the border again.

Mike Milne with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the movement of Kinder eggs across the border into the United States has been “an ongoing problem for years,” particularly during the Easter holidays.

Milne said officers do not usually fine travellers for carrying the chocolates, but they do normally confiscate them. Roughly 60,000 Kinder eggs were seized last year.

“Kinder eggs are prohibited just like narcotics are prohibited,” he said. “Our officers, if they encounter prohibited stuff, they’re subject to seizure.”

Americans should sleep soundly at night knowing that stalwart men and women are determined to keep illicit treats from defiling their Kinder egg-free land.