Two officials of the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport were arrested for allegedly helping a smuggler to transport around 10,000 memory cards, estimated to be worth around Rs 20 lakh, Customs officials said today.

On-duty airport managers Mahesh Bamane and Rakshit Kapoor were arrested on Monday night along with Mohammed Sayyed Hanif, who tried to smuggle in the memory cards, they said.

The arrests were made after Hanif was apprehended by the sleuths when he was passing through the Green Channel carrying the bag containing the memory cards.

According to sources, Customs officials had laid a trap at 2B terminal for Hanif who had landed here from Hong Kong on a Thai Airways flight.

During his interrogation, Hanif revealed that he was supposed to drop the bag containing memory cards in a dustbin from where Bamne would have carried it outside the airport.

However, Hanif could not dump the bag as planned due to security and had to carry it along with him.

Bamane helped Hanif by taking him to other terminal instead of 2B terminal where all other passengers were heading to.

Sources said, Kapoor was nabbed after his role in the racket surfaced following Bamne's arrest.

All three have been arrested and released on bail.

Authorities charged an Army expert for attempting to board a plane with a military-grade explosive at a Texas airport in an incident official downplayed as nothing nefarious.

Trey Scott Atwater, 30, of Hope Mills, North Carolina, was taken into custody.

Transportation Security Administration agents spotty the item in his carry-on through X-ray screening at a security checkpoint at the Midland International Airport, Midland police and city officials said.

The material was recognized as an explosive; though it was determined there was no way to ignite it as there was no detonator or initiator, a law enforcement official told CNN on condition of anonymity. The official was not authorized to release the info to the media.

Atwater was an active-duty army soldier, the official said.

The incident push the evacuation and temporary-closure of a part of an airport terminal, authorities said.

"At no-time was there any risk to the people at Midland International Airport or the community of Midland, Texas," Mark Morgan, an FBI spokesman, said in a report.

Atwater has been arrested on a federal count of trying to board an aircraft with an explosive, Morgan said.

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A man attempted to board a plane in Argentina with approximately 250 poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles in his baggage, each carefully labelled with its Latin name.

Czech citizen Karel Abelovsky, 51, was on the way to Spain when airport officials made him open his luggage at Buenos Aires international airport after police recognize the reptiles in the X-ray scanner.

They detect 247 exotic and rare species in all, packed inside plastic containers, bags and even socks.

Authorities believe the Czech was a messenger for a criminal organization that smuggles exotic species whose exports are banned. Authorities said Abelovsky arrived in Argentina only days earlier and wouldn't have had time to collect all the animals.

Judge Marcelo Aguinsky believes the boa constrictors, poisonous pit vipers and coral snakes, lizards and spiders could have get away the cloth suitcase in the unpressurised cabin of the December 7 Iberia flight to Madrid, and maybe attacked people there or at his final destination in Prague, where antidotes for South American snakes aren't common, the source added.

Abelovsky was released on around $US2,500 ($A2,468) bail after surrendering his passport and is refusing to talk even though he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Abelovsky runs a Czech-website that offers reptiles for sale. A woman who responds the contact number given on the site said she was his wife but did not give her name and said only that her husband was normal.

Czech authorities have no information about Abelovsky, said Martina Kankova, spokeswoman for Czech customs administration. She said authorities have traced various people or broken rings of smugglers of several exotic animals in recent years, as well as turtles and parrots.

Czech television described before this year that in 2010, customs officials in the country detained 55 smugglers with dozens of exotic animals.

Most of the animals and bugs are being held under quarantine at the Buenos Aires Zoo, whereas some of the venomous snakes were sent to Argentina's national health institute, which has a high security department where scientists develop-antidotes using venom from snakes.

The species include lizards native to Mexico and snakes, spiders, snails and other species from northern Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. Some were already dead in the bag, while others have succumbed to stress since next. Many were quite weak on arrival at the zoo, but the majority is still alive.