- Lays Laraya, a travel blogger, was gifted a rose before departing on a Qatar Airways flight.
- Laraya said despite carrying the rose visibly, she was fined for falsifying an official document.
A travel blogger who flew from Qatar to Australia said she was given an over $1,200 fine after walking through the airport with a gifted rose and forgetting to properly mark it on her passenger card.
Lays Laraya told Insider she received the fine for violating the country's Biosecurity Act after being randomly screened by two plainclothes officials at Perth Airport, but maintains her innocence. Laraya told Insider that she had been "visibly" walking around the airport with the rose and did not try to sneak the flower into the country.
"I had nothing to hide," Laraya told Insider.
Laraya, who documents her travels as Skywardsfreak on Instagram and YouTube, told Insider she received the rose as a thoughtful gesture after writing notes for all the crew members and pilots on her Qatar Airways flight. Laraya said she often saves the gifts that she receives from crew members and does not blame the Qatari airline for the situation.
After hopping on the flight to Australia and landing at Perth Airport, Laraya said she held the rose in her hand because she did not want to damage it. She also posted a video with the rose on Instagram, which she said is now private because she had received many negative comments after sharing her story.
Before she reached immigration, Laraya said two men in civilian clothes approached her.
"As a single woman traveling, I don't know if I developed my defense mechanisms, so I was like, 'Whoa, that's intimidating.' I said that to them because I didn't know they were officials. And I'm like, 'What the heck is going on here?'"
She said the two people ordered her to follow them, asking for her passport and phone in the process. They eventually showed her their badges. Laraya said she did not understand why they had pulled her aside but complied.
During this encounter, Laraya said she was dressed as Barbie — with a pink dress and blonde wig — and wondered if they had profiled her for her outfit.
"He was like, 'No, we don't profile people based on appearance,'" Laraya said.
Laraya said one agent then asked that she complete her incoming passenger card — which asks recent arrivals a series of questions, including whether or not they are bringing plants.
"It didn't pass through my mind that the rose was within the category of those plants that they would be looking right," Laraya said. "So my mistake, my mistake. I check 'no' and that was their accusation in the end."
After a series of inquiries — some of which included questions about her marital status and salary that she said she felt were "inappropriate" — and 30 minutes of inspecting every piece of her luggage, Laraya said another worker returned with her passenger card and the rose.
"She puts the landing card in front of me and asks, 'Is this landing card yours?' I said yes. 'Do you recognize the signature on the landing card?' I said yes, I recognize the signature. 'Did you fill this landing truthfully?' I said 100%, everything is true here — and mind you, I had the rose right in front of me and I said this true because I still didn't think that I was gonna get in trouble for the rose."
"And then she picked the rose and said, 'How about this rose? Is this yours?' I said, Yes, it's mine. And then she's like, 'Can you read the card again and see whether the rose will fit in any of the questions that you said no to?' So then I saw the one about plants. So I told her, 'Yes, I understand where you're coming from and the rose may fit into this category of plants.'"
Laraya said immediately after that, she was fined for knowingly providing false or misleading information and slapped with a penalty of $1,878 AUD, or over $1,200 USD.
"If I knew I was doing something wrong willingly, I would have thrown it away before… I had the opportunity," Laraya told Insider.
A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry told Insider via email that the penalty reflects the risk of the action. If a traveler "fails to declare goods of a kind known to pose a high level of biosecurity risk" and provides false information, the infringement notice increases from a couple of hundred dollars to the $1,200+ fine.
"All travelers coming to Australia must be aware of Australia's strict biosecurity requirements and the penalties for not complying with those requirements," the department spokesperson said.
In Australia, flowers are considered a biosecurity risk because they can carry species of mites, aphids, and thrips, according to the Invasive Species Council.
Laraya said she is trying to appeal the infringement and has heard from many people that she should have gotten off with a warning or a much lower fine than she had received. She also claimed that she saw another family with a similar infringement get off with a warning.
The DAFF spokesperson told Insider that warnings are provided on a case-by-case basis, including if someone has a language barrier that prevents them from understanding their card.
Ultimately, Laraya was also given back the rose after officials observed it and cut off the stem. The spokesperson said it's common to return items "once all of the biosecurity requirements have been met."
"I'm considering whether I would come back to Australia, but this is not revengeful. It's just that I don't know what could happen, right? If I was framed because of a rose on this amount of money, it just shakes my trust in the soundness of the approaches of the country," she said.
A spokesperson for the Australian Border Force declined to comment and redirected Insider to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry.