That button at the airport...read?

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g r

i went to lima many times and passed thru it with many things in my luggage and its always green. never had a problem. they are really relaxed at the lima airport... even if u have a knife in your bag they dont care. this is peru, this isnt usa or canada where everyone has something up their ***.

Mark The Latin Travel Dude

They have the same red/green light system in many countries (including Mexico). I've gotten red a couple times, though usually green. I wouldn't say the search is "extremeley thorough" --- they're mostly just looking for things that you're supposed to be declaring and paying duty on. In Lima, they seemed especially worried about what electronic devices you were importing.

I always hear rumors that the lights aren't entirely random---that there's somebody watching the crowds and if somebody looks particularly "interesting" they can be assured of getting a red. Don't know that to be fact though, but it makes for great conspiracy theory.

reggae_music_lover

Those buttons are supposedly random and I have had it turn red on me once. Keep in mind they still have the right to send you and your bags to be reviewed.

As far as knives go, I forgot a Leatherman in my computer bag and they did confiscate it. As far as someone having something up their a**......remember it was only some boxcutters that the 9/11 hijackers used.

As far as other places with those buttons, Bogota has the same.

memorex

I suppose that nowadays is random. But in my personal experience I can say that in the beginning, that button wasn't by any chance random. In fact I would bet that someone was watching from a one-way mirror window and deliberately turned the light red if someone had a lot of luggage or maybe if someone declared one item and they wanted to make sure he's not smuggling a couple more.

The first airport to have this system was Pudahuel in Santiago Chile, but here we peruvianized the system.

Once in 1998 I came back from LA and my wife hit the button green, so I walked right behind her and was stopped by a customs personnel, they told me to push the button but I said that my wife already did and we are traveling together so it's the same luggage. I got hot tempered about it because I knew that the moment I was going to push the button I would go red and told them just that, meanwhile everyone else was pushing the button and it was always giving green, obviously because they didn't want any congestion before getting to me (mistakenly thinking I had something illegal). Finally I agreed to push the button but not before telling all the people around to check out how this wasn't a random thing. "Behold how the light turns red!" . . . . and so it did!

Unfortunately for customs I didn't have anything illegal on me.

PS. You'll always see a thumb down (if not many) on my answers, that's a New York girl who got the biggest crush on me!
Sorry T-E, I'm happily married.

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