More often, though, they sift through cigarettes, drugs, firearms, jewelry and Chinese knock-offs of big clothing labels. The customs have made 50m separate hauls this year, to a value of HUF37bn.
Victor Christ, a Romanian with plenty to declare, became increasingly nervous as the border guards in Nagylak started examining his car. In the end he confessed to having six poisonous vipers stashed away inside. It was a wise choice: if the slithery creatures had bitten one of the guards, he would have faced charge not just of illegal animal import but also of endangering the life of a customs official. The court in Makó merely sentenced him to paying a HUF60,000 fine, equal to 240 days in prison, according to Attila Cseh, vice-president of Csongrád County Court. The vipers - and the two Greek tortoises found in the same haul - were actually worth HUF280,000, but the court viewed as mitigating circumstances the fact that Christ had no prior convictions and that he regretted his actions.
Importing vipers is not smuggling under the law, but the more serious offense of causing harm to the environment. The offense is defined in international law as dealing in protected animals. Under Hungarian law, people caught obtaining, illegally importing, destroying or dealing in such animals can be sentenced to up to three years in prison. But smuggling, so long as its value is below HUF2m bears a maximum sentence of one year in prison.
The viper case is not rare. In September, 39 tortoises were found hidden amongst clothes in the bag of a Polish man in Tompa. Jenő Sipos of the National Customs Authority, also mentioned a case where a man anaesthetised the birds he was trying to smuggle in. Unfortunately, the queue at the border was too long, they woke and began to twitter.
If animals are found, establishing their value is a very expensive business. When thirty Amazonian parrots were found recently, the customs authority had to bring in a specialist from Frankfurt to assess their value.
The biggest recent find was of 12,000 protected birds, worth HUF300m, found in a refrigerator car heading to Italy. A 11-member Hungarian-Italian conspiracy is awaiting trial for this. The Italian conspirators had to put down a bond of HUF20m in order to await their trial at home.
It is also illegal to take products made from protected animals across the border. The border guards have bearskin, cat fur, ivory and butterfly paste in their collection.