greetings,
While we have not had problems with many countries, we recently returned from a shelling trip to Tonga. I insisted on bringing the largest murex romossa (sp?)  and a few terebras and miters back in a padded six pack cooler like you use for pop so that the big and  the fragile would be well protected.
 I put the little soft sided cooler into a larger carryon bag and the xray prompted suspicion which prompted the unpacking of the shells which prompted the Tongan security guy to remove the shells and demonstrate how they could be used as weapons.....So we had to go back out through customs and check the little bitty padded six pack cooler. Amazingly it rolled off the luggage conveyor in LAX just fine...the rest of the luggage containing the other shells was lost for a few days, but in the end, the shells got home just fine.
Good luck!!
Clair Beckmann
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