A customs stop in Thailand on Tuesday turned up 600 smuggled cobras secreted in the back of a pickup truck. A security official made the potentially deadly find.

The BBC reports the would-be smuggler confessed the reptiles were likely from Malaysia and were headed to neighboring Laos.

The area is a transit hub for black market animal trading. The snakes -- which had a street value of more than 15 thousand U.S. dollars -- were likely to be killed and used in traditional Asian medicine.

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