Is Johnny Depp going to spend 10 years in an Australian prison for illegally smuggling his Yorkshire Terriers into the country on a private plane, only to have the Agriculture Minister catch wind of the massive quarantine breech and threaten to kill Pistol and Boo after Deep sent them to the groomer for a little freshening up?
Could be!
That’s the official word of Senate committee members, who are taking just as hard a line as Minister of Agriculture Barnaby Joyce, who first threatened to kill the dogs. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, government officials have “confirmed” that Depp could face up to 10 years in prison or a maximum fine of $340,000 for illegally bringing his two dogs into Australia.
It appears Depp’s dog debacle has made it all the way to the upper echelon of Australian politics. A Senate committee hearing in Canberra devoted a good amount of time to the case, according to the Herald, in which Agriculture Department officials showed up at Parliament House to get grilled about the dogs.
They were grilled for 40 minutes.
Australia, as everyone completely knows by now, takes its quarantine laws very seriously, and the fact that a film star was able to smuggle dogs in undetected — even though customs officials boarded the private plane before the passengers disembarked — rubs many officials the wrong way.
“A complete balls up,” said one committee member, according to the Herald.
“It is very serious,” said another.
And it’s not only Depp who’s in trouble — the pilot, who let the ruse occur under his watch, could get two years in jail as well.
We doubt it will come to this, but … first the government threatens to kill two little dogs, and now it’s clamoring to throw an A-list actor in prison for a decade? Australia just might surprise you.
Via the Sydney Morning Herald
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