Pack that false leg yourself, sir?

Criminal gangs are using ever more ingenious methods to smuggle their goods into the country, and an increasingly varied collection of contraband is being intercepted by Customs officers.

As technology provides new weapons in the fight against smuggling, so the criminals become ever more cunning in finding ways to avoid detection. These range from using hollowed wooden legs stashed with hard and soft drugs to containers such as a giant hip flask dating from the 1800s, which was designed to strap around the body to carry alcohol.

Recognising the value of rare and exotic species of animals, smugglers are also shipping in a wide variety of wildlife from stuffed king penguins to stunning cheetah skins.

All these and more are on display in a museum at the HM Customs and Excise House in Gravesend, Kent, where only Customs and police officers normally get to see the exhibits.

This Sunday, however, the museum opens its doors to the public and visitors will get a chance to see how the smugglers' ingenuity has been foiled. One man with a wooden leg was stopped at London City Airport and when officers searched the false limb, they found £11,000 worth of cannabis inside. The man was jailed for 18 months.

Steve Hallworth, from HM Customs and Excise, has seen many of the tricks of the smuggling trade first hand, but says the ingenuity shown by criminals never ceases to amaze him.

"We don't normally open the exhibition to the public, but we try and give people the chance to see it a couple of days a year," he said. "Smugglers go to outrageous lengths trying to get past Customs at ports of entry across the country. They try to come up with new methods of bringing contraband goods into Britain and we have to be one step ahead of them - not an easy task."

The museum also has an X-ray photograph of a man who was stopped at London City Airport after swallowing 73 packages of cocaine. He could have earned £63,000 from selling the drugs on the street but instead ended up with a prison sentence of five years.

Other exhibits include an Islamic prayer book which contained 46 grammes of heroin, a King Penguin skin, a tiger's skull, ivory, a wooden duck holding cannabis and a flower in a glass vase which held more than £50,000 worth of cocaine.

One couple whose baby had died used the corpse of their child and hid thousands of pounds of cocaine inside the body. Stewards on board their plane alerted Customs officers on the ground because the baby was so quiet throughout the flight.

The exhibition is open Sunday only, from 11am to 4pm, at Custom House Building, The Terrace, Opposite Fort Gardens, Gravesend, Kent. Free entry. For further information call 01375 853033.