What amounts to reasonable suspicion?
A customs officer does not have to be certain that you are carrying an unlawful item in order to justify a search. But there must be some concrete basis for the officer’s suspicion, which relates to you. The mere fact that you have arrived from a particular destination, that you are dressed in a certain way or that you are carrying particular items such as condoms, cigarette papers or petroleum jelly, which could be associated with drug use or drug trafficking, is not in itself sufficient justification. However, a combination of these or other facts, such as suspicious behaviour, an unusual quantity of luggage, unexplained journeys abroad, etc., may give rise to enough reasonable suspicion to justify you being searched. What must you be told? The customs officer must tell you what you are suspected of: for example, ‘I have reasonable grounds to suspect that you are carrying illegal drugs.’ Although you should ask why you are suspected of a particular offence, the customs officer does n
