Ask HN: Did this customs agent attempt to plant contraband on me?
The incident:<p>I was preparing to board a flight from DFW to China for a 2 week vacation. I scanned my boarding pass and began walking towards the skybridge to board the plane and a customs agent stepped in front of me and asked if I was carrying more than $5,000 in cash on me, to which I responded &quot;no&quot;. He then said &quot;okay, we are doing a test today, you get to help us out with this test and can tell your friends about it won&#x27;t that be cool?&quot; and had me put on a jacket which looked roughly similar to the one I had on. I thought &quot;okay, this is kinda weird but whatever I&#x27;ll help you guys out&quot;.<p>I should mention this guy had a thick Russian accent&#x2F;imperfect English, but his uniform looked legit. At no point did he mention participation was optional. He held onto my passport while I put on the jacket (over the jacket I was already wearing) and I proceeded to walk down the skybridge towards the plane, but he almost immediately stopped me and said &quot;walk slowly&quot;. At the other end of the skybridge there were about 4 - 8 TSA agents and a sniffer dog. At this point I got skeptical of the situation and started feeling around the jacket expecting to find some sort of contraband, and ended up finding a brick-shaped lump of what I am guessing was either drugs, fake drugs or cash either in the jacket pocket or sewn into the jacket itself. I held up the lump inside the jacket and looked toward the agent with a &#x27;wtf?&#x27; look on my face, to which he responded &quot;it is currency&quot;.<p>At this point I became even more skeptical, took off the jacket and returned it to the agent and asked for my passport back. I then proceeded to board the plane without the jacket and the TSA agents reacted with a big &quot;aaaahh man!&quot; as if they really wanted me to board the plane with that jacket on.<p>This was my first time flying overseas, but I&#x27;m guessing this isn&#x27;t standard procedure.<p>Has anyone experienced something similar to this? Did these guys attempt to plant drugs on me? What&#x27;s going on here?