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Home » Australia » True Story: Woman Fined $1,800 For Not Declaring Subway Sandwich At Customs
Australia

True Story: Woman Fined $1,800 For Not Declaring Subway Sandwich At Customs

Matthew Klint Posted onJuly 18, 2022November 13, 2023 20 Comments

a group of people posing for the camera

Australia takes the importation of food very seriously. Don’t try it…even a half-eaten Subway sandwich you bought at the airport. One woman learned the hard way with an $1,800 fine for failing to declare her chicken sandwich.

Woman Fined Over $1,800 For Failing to Declare Half-Eaten Subway Sandwich To Customs Officer Upon Arrival In Australia

It was a harmless mistake, or so she thought. Jessica Lee had purchased a foot-long chicken sandwich at a Subway inside Singapore Changi International Airport and had eaten only half of it on her flight to Sydney. Rather than toss it out, she took it along.

While passing though immigration, she was asked about whether she had any food items in her possession and said no, forgetting about the sandwich (she insists).

The sandwich was spotted and Lee was slapped with a fine of AUD2664, which is roughly USD1800.

Agents hold great discretion in whether to mete out fines, but chose to fine Lee on the grounds that she was clearly aware (as a native English speaker) of the requirements yet failed to abide by them.

Lee is apologetic, but insists she meant no harm.

https://www.tiktok.com/@_jessicaleeee/video/7115380280478698753

Wisdom: just don’t bring any food at all into Australia, even the packed chocolate or chips that might be offered on your flight. Officials take this VERY seriously.

CONCLUSION

A woman was fined over $1,800 for failing to declare a half-eaten chicken sandwich from Subway while arriving in Australia.

Perhaps next time, Lee will realize that bigger is not always better and that feeding on six inches would have been better than dealing with the consequences of 12 inches. Plus, I’d have to imagine that the food on Singapore Airlines or Qantas was much more satisfying than anything Subway offers, which is why she didn’t finish the sandwich in the first place…

(H/T: View From The Wing)

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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20 Comments

  1. Sean M. Reply
    July 18, 2022 at 3:59 pm

    She has leveraged this drama into getting Subway to pay off her fine, give her free subs for a year and also an endorsement partnership. So she definitely came out ahead from the deal in the end.

    • Ryan Reply
      July 19, 2022 at 10:20 am

      Definitely ahead if Subway paid the fine. Free Subway for a year is more of a punishment than a reward. So, in the end, she is paying for her mistake – in the form of having to eat more Subway!

    • PolishKnight Reply
      July 19, 2022 at 4:01 pm

      I read up on it and she apparently got a gift card for $1800 (USD) meaning she’s going to be eating at Subway for a while (but also, I suppose, she can transfer it to smaller cards and then quietly sell them off via ebay).

      I don’t mean to make this political, but this incident does beg observation that it’s a bit of a secret (shhh!) that pretty white women can get away with more than most others, because, well, because. The “Karen” meme has even extended to mocking entitled middle-class white guys who “complain to the manager”, but the reality is that “Karens” act like Karens not because they have a misplaced sense of entitlement that annoys everyone around them, but a real one. She didn’t just get mocked and ignored, but REWARDED for her behavior.

      I’ve got a 6 year old girl with a lot of “sass” and it’s going to be a fun ride for 6 years keeping her ego in check. It’s a tough job, and a lot of people don’t do it.

  2. Mr. Marcus Reply
    July 18, 2022 at 5:04 pm

    I generally dislike seeing people whine about getting caught for blatantly breaking the rules, but $1800 does seem an overly harsh fine for a half eaten chicken sandwich. On the other hand, if they fined her $1800 for making that annoying tik tok video, I’d be fine with that.

  3. Mr. Bill Reply
    July 18, 2022 at 5:35 pm

    Recently brought 4 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies to AU. Declared them, go pulled aside, 2 min later on my way. AU is great. You can bring in some nasty stuff but as long as you declared you had it, they take it but you don’t get fined, for the most part. Also, she must have done something else as they don’t just pull you aside to ‘search’ for food. They had some other reason. AU Border Force isn’t random, she triggered something.

    • JW Reply
      July 19, 2022 at 6:06 pm

      Sir you were lucky they were cooked food that contained no meat. There is no tolerance for uncooked food and any form of meat, declared or not. She would have gotten the fine even if she declared it.

    • just_observing Reply
      July 20, 2022 at 2:34 am

      FWIW, I read elsewhere that they had declared cigars they were bringing into Australia, which is what led to the interaction with border control, during which the border officers saw the sandwich.

  4. MeanMeosh Reply
    July 18, 2022 at 11:05 pm

    “Perhaps next time, Lee will realize that bigger is not always better and that feating on six inches would have been better than dealing with the consequences of 12 inches.”

    I’m sure the double entendre here was completely unintentional.

    • Tee Jay Reply
      July 19, 2022 at 9:33 am

      Too funny! Made my morning.

  5. St James Reply
    July 18, 2022 at 11:43 pm

    Yeah per the above, you just declare and they generally let you keep it. Worst case they confiscate it with no fine (for some fresh foods).
    The normal fine is also much lower than $1800 which suggests there’s a lot more to what went down than she’s giving away.

    • just_observing Reply
      July 20, 2022 at 2:30 am

      I was curious about the fine, too, and it turns out apparently during the pandemic Australia increased significantly the declaration penalties. Prior to 2021, it seems $444 was the standard pretty much regardless, but now it indeed ranges up to $2664 depending on what is undeclared.

  6. cargocult Reply
    July 19, 2022 at 12:51 am

    This girl was in SIN and Subway was what she decided on? Does this girl have a speech impediment? It is hard to understand what she is saying. It is as if her tongue were swollen. A reaction to eating Subway? TikTok (perhaps the wokest of the major social media platforms) is a CCP attack on the West. The CCP also funds woke racial grievance organizations to destroy social cohesion in the US.

    I got Tim Ho Wan takeaway at the Jewel and made sure to declare it in SFO as I know there are sometimes dogs in the baggage claim area. The agent made me throw it away because it had pork in it. Ham sui gok are haram! Not worth losing Global Entry over.

    • Billy Bob Reply
      July 19, 2022 at 11:39 am

      “Blah blah blah woke blah blah blah”

      Ok boomer

  7. derek Reply
    July 19, 2022 at 2:26 am

    It is better to declare food and remember later that you ate it then to not declare food and caught with a candy bar.

    I got caught with some crackers that the airline gave me on the flight to Australia.

  8. Ksa63 Reply
    July 19, 2022 at 6:45 am

    Eating Subway is bad enough. But why save half a sandwich? The flight is approx 6-7 hours in duration. Who is going to enjoy half of an old Subway sandwich after it has sat in a bag on a plane for so long?

  9. G Reply
    July 19, 2022 at 7:40 am

    She should have picked up the sandwich and ate it in front of them. I mean what’s the difference bring it in your luggage or in your stomach? Answer $1800

  10. whocares Reply
    July 19, 2022 at 5:58 pm

    and yet they had no problem importing all those ‘safe & effective’ vaccines. hmmm…

  11. B Nelsen Reply
    July 20, 2022 at 3:20 pm

    Customs cuts no slack. I forgot to eat a ham sandwich, which was packed for me by our hosts, when returning from Mexico to the US on a private plane. I voluntarily surrendered it, when I realized it was in my bag. Two months later, time to renew Global Entry. My wife had her new card in 10 days. After repeatedly checking the TSA website for two months, I finally had a notice to schedule an interview. I went to the Houston airport and met with a great TSA agent, who had a good sense of humor. I asked him if he could tell me why I had to come in for an interview. He looked into my file, laughed, and said “did you try to bring a ham sandwich into the country?” I had my renewal the next week.

  12. Tony N Reply
    July 23, 2022 at 4:23 pm

    Ok, so this is where I think Australians are ridiculous (along with their past Covid rules). The food is processed and there are no bugs in it. But tell that to them, they won’t understand and I think they just do that just for more MONEY in the pocket of their government. No Australia for me.

  13. Tony N Reply
    July 23, 2022 at 4:28 pm

    I always cross the border US and Mexico with food. Processed and dry. Because I don’t want to throw it out from my stay at my condo. The rules have to change. The food is processed and there are NO BUGS in it. In the meantime, I should not want to get caught.

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