I have just gone through Customs in Colombia, and they have confiscated a mixture of eneloops and duraloops of four cells in total. I have been travelling with these spare cells all over South America and my absolute last day in this continent, they get taken away from me.
Slightly peeved off at the JetBlue staff at check-in who said it was ok to go through with the cells.
Now I only have a total of four spare AAs. Sad to see good cells go.
How annoying!! Did they explain why they took them? I wonder if they thought they were lithium cells.
Somebody was looking for a payday, one way or another . . .
I didn’t think NiMH was even mentioned in any air travel safety rules. I’ve travelled with Li-Ion and NiMH without issue. That sucks! :Sp
This.
One thing I learned many years ago working throughout Africa - if I kept a British 5 pound note or a U.S. $5 bill folded in my passport I got through customs in a breeze. Otherwise there was no end of hassles.
do they reimburse you or give you a receipt? You may want to search on “international treaties” and “international law”.
“Fool me once, . . .”
In many third world countries receipts at the border come in a variety of calibers….making a fuss over mere property is highly inadvisable. The next flashlight you’d encounter would be illuminating your tonsils from the far side.
That’s unfortunate. Maybe it was an unsavory flashaholic. 
The US is supposed to be about #18 in non-corruption. I’d hate to see country #180.
One of the many reasons I have zero interest in traveling outside the western world. You're lucky that's all they took from you..
I have a customer in Bogata. We sent a machine that consumed 3 big boxes. Customs let the electronics and one of the boxes with mechanical parts through without any problem. They held the other mechanical parts for about 45 days, demanding about $500 from the customer and even making threats.
Since it was a Fed X shipment, we got them involved. They talked customs into releasing the package back to the states. Fed X called me and wanted my permission to NOT ship the box back but just to send it out of the country to one of their facilities... and back to Columbia. I said ok so thats what they did... flew it out, flew it back... and customs let it through with no problem.
According to Fed X it is a money game. I guess from what they said they release partial shipments often...then literally rob the receiver of all they can. This customer IS COLUMBIAN... so you can just imagine what little someone not Columbian can mean to those thieves!! She was afraid to get mean about the ordeal with them at all... her words... "I could disappear doing that" ... Like someone else said... just be glad thats all they wanted. !!
Dan.
Wow, scary. 
So it seems a boatload of lawyers is trumped by small lead pellets moving at high speed.
If you cooperate with the crooks you get a slight reward; if you don’t you disappear after being tortured.
A ‘rational actor’ would cooperate.
I guess I am not rational because I’d prefer to off (in the US you go to the newspapers) those crooked b@st@rds one by one. . .but I am biased.
It also depends on how long you have to live according to the mortality calculators on the Web.
What would you do if you knew to 95% certainty that you had one more day to live?
And according to Ms. Vos Savant ‘Justice becomes Revenge when it’s starts being fun’. 
Just writing this post is fun.
most often that would be either 5.45x39mm or 7.62x39mm. Warsaw Pact munitions are omnipresent in 3rd world countries (unless they have the funds for American, Belgian or German rifles, or the patience for English ones).
…back to topic… wow! for real? I mean…. NiMH rechargeables confiscated? Wow, that’s just, like… wow! Well, let it go… but other than that, those guys at the customs are doing alright? I mean, no high temperature, no shaking hands, no strange skin colour, no shortness of breath…?
My Spanish is not the best, but if I had queried further why they were taking them or explained that the batteries were nimh and not li-ion, I could have kept them. The Custom officials did keep on referring to them as “camera batteries” so they may h tht they were li-ion like most modern camera batteries (I have an old Canon P & S that takes AAs).