The Most Bizarre Items TSA Confiscated In 2025

Airports have recently tightened security with new measures including the Real ID requirement and biometric facial scanning technology for the screening process, but that doesn’t stop some people from trying to sneak forbidden items onto flights. Despite knowing TSA agents will be at checkpoints looking through carry-on luggage, some passengers think the rules don’t apply to them and will try their luck at smuggling stuff on board.

Some of them go all out trying to conceal these banned items, so the Transportation Security Administration has their work cut out for them in the security line. Wild things TSA agents confiscated at airports across the country in 2025 include:

• A handgun hidden in a guitar case - In October at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, a TSA officer discovered an “instrument of destruction” when they found a handgun disguised in a guitar case.
• A BB gun concealed inside a suitcase lining - Passengers kept the TSA busy in Newark, in June they found a high-threat item when an X-ray screening revealed a BB gun cleverly hiding in the lining of the flyer’s luggage.
• Ninja throwing stars - Weapons of all kinds are found by TSA, but they’re not often ninja weapons like the throwing stars found at Newark airport in December. The small weapons had metal blades with three to eight points and agents described the find as “very odd.”
• A flashlight taser - A TSA officer at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport was “stunned” to catch a passenger trying to sneak a stun gun disguised as a flashlight through security in September.
• A knife hidden in a belt buckle - It was like something from a KGB spy movie when TSA officers spotted a knife disguised in a belt buckle at the Baltimore airport in July.
• A comb knife - This time it was an employee at Newark airport trying to get a weapon through! They were busted with a money-themed comb knife and promptly got arrested.
• Drugs in shoes - A passenger in Baltimore tried to sneak pills hidden inside a paper towel in their shoe through security, but TSA spotted them.
• A mistaken IED-entity - Back in October, TSA agents saw what they thought was a “bomb,” but it was a false alarm. Turns out, it was a Montessori Children’s Switch Board Toy, which has a lot of buttons and wires making it resemble an improvised explosive device.

Source: NY Post

photo: GETTY