On the afternoon of July 11, police discovered 28 boxes of live snakes on a bus traveling from Jiangxi province to Shanghai.

But where did the snakes come from? According to the bus driver, the boxes were left by a man at the highway toll station in Le'an, Jiangxi province. The man asked the bus driver to transport the boxes to Yiwu, Zhejiang province, and then left the boxes at the toll station in Yiwu. He told the driver that he would get paid in Yiwu once the boxes had been received.

The driver said he initially had no idea what was inside the mysterious packages. The snakes had been packed inside white foam boxes, and police could hear the animals hiss when they examined the bus. Some of the snakes even bit through their containers, presumably provoked by hot temperatures. Passengers aboard the bus were terrified when they saw the snakes. 

Police eventually transferred all the snakes to the local forestry department. Based on preliminary examinations, they were determined to be a non-poisonous variety. Without a wild animal transport permit, however, all the snakes are temporarily stuck. Police are currently searching for the owner who commissioned the cargo.