US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items"

Before you whine about an airline temporarily losing your luggage, think of poor Boujemaa Razgui. The flute virtuoso who performs regularly with The Boston Camerata lost 13 handmade flutes over the holidays when a US Customs official at New York’s JFK Airport mistook the instruments for pieces of bamboo and destroyed them. Razgui, a Canadian citizen who lives some of the time in Brockton, had flown last week from Morocco to Boston, with stops in Madrid and New York. In New York, he says, an official opened his luggage and found the 13 flutelike instruments — 11 nays and two kawalas. Razgui says he had made all of the instruments using hard-to-find reeds. “They said this is an agriculture item,” said Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. “I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.” When his baggage arrived in Boston, the instruments were gone. He was instead given a number to call. “They told me they were destroyed,” he says. “Nobody talked to me. They said I have to write a letter to the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. This is horrible."...more 

I don't have much truck with flute players but destroying this man's property is ridiculous.  The flutes have a mouthpiece with a reed in them and the fingering holes...and the fool thinks its a stick of bamboo?  This is the same government that wants to control my healthcare!

Its time to resurrect the Los Payasos designation and award it to this employee of U.S. Customs who appears to be nothing but a big old waste of skin.