Word: contrabanding
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Usually they attend a crash course in how to handle themselves. In summer, hundreds of vacationing college kids turn up and volunteer. Those "after adventure" are turned down. So is anybody with a hippie look-customs officials are bound to check them for nonreligious contraband such as drugs or diamonds...
...measure, an unlikely hero. His self-image is a familiar and obnoxious one: cocky, fool-hardy American punk bopping around the Mideast with his girl and his stash. Played by Brad Davis in his flashy feature film debut, Billy comes off as a hopeless amateur in the contraband business, the kind of sunglassed shmuck who chews gum and smokes a Winston at the same time while a suspicious customs agent checks his bags. Naturally, Billy does not read the papers; otherwise he would have known about the tight security checks at Istanbul airport caused by a rash of hijackings...
Finding their newly discovered stela too heavy to cart away intact, the thieves cut it into six pieces with chain saws. Then, along with the rest of their booty, they load the chunks onto burros and head for the border. Within days their contraband enters the flourishing black market in pre-Columbian antiquities, to be bought by rich collectors in the U.S., Western Europe or Japan...
...wine is officially considered contraband and is now locked up under bond. At week's end, plans were being made to ship it to the officers' club at Wichita's McConnell Air Force Base. Since that institution is not subject to state liquor laws, the wine could legally be consumed there, perhaps at a party on the base runway. The catch is that guests would have to drive there from the art exhibit, which is set up 20 miles away...
...search warrant allows the police to use any contraband seized as evidence against the students in a court...