The $500 apple: Woman Fined For Failing to Declare Fruit She Was Given on Flight

A woman from Colorado has been fined $500 (£360) after failing to declare an apple that she took from a transatlantic flight.

Crystal Tadlock was given the fruit sealed in a wrapper on her Delta flight from Paris to Minneapolis on 18 April. She did not eat it on the journey and decided to save it for her connecting flight to Denver.

As Minneapolis was her first landing point in the US, Ms Tadlock was required to declare all food products, or deposit the offending item in an "amnesty bin".

But a random check by US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service officials discovered the forbidden fruit.

She told Denver TV station Fox 31: "He had asked me if my trip to France was expensive and I said, 'yeah'. I didn't really get why he was asking that question and then he said 'it's about to get a lot more expensive after I charge you $500'." 

She added that she had pointed out the Delta logo on the wrapper, showing the fruit came from the airline.

"It's really unfortunate someone has to go through that and be treated like a criminal over a piece of fruit," she said. 

The passenger also lost her Global Entry status, which provides express screening and border control for international journeys./ independent.co.uk/