Authorities discovered the load in a nitrogen tank in the man’s bag as he was passing through the town of Nong Khai.

He confessed that the semen was intended for a fertility clinic in the Laotian capital, Vientiane.

There has been a boom in commercial surrogacy in Laos after it was banned in neighbouring Thailand and Cambodia.

Police said the semen came from Vietnamese and Chinese men.

Thailand banned foreigners from paying Thai woman to become surrogate mothers in 2015 following a string of scandals while Cambodia implemented a similar ban last year.