In case you consider to fly to …, read this report.
– TSA Agent at JFK airport stole $5,000 cash from passenger (Daily Mail, Feb. 2, 2012):
* Comes just days after a TSA agent in Dallas was found with 8 stolen iPads
Police say a Transportation Security Administration agent stole $5,000 in cash from a passenger’s jacket as he was going through security at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the latest in a string of thefts that has embarrassed the agency.
Alexandra Schmid took the cash from the jacket of a Bangladeshi passenger as it went along an X-ray conveyor belt at around 8pm Wednesday, said Port Authority spokesman Al Della Fave.
‘In viewing the surveillance video, we observed her removing the currency from the victim’s jacket pocket,’ Mr Della Fave said.
The video showed Ms Schmid wrapping the money in a plastic glove and taking it to a bathroom, he said.
The money hasn’t been recovered, Mr Della Fave said. Police are investigating whether Ms Schmid gave it to another person in the bathroom.
The 31-year-old Ms Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation. Her attorney’s name wasn’t immediately known.
Ms Schmid, who lives in Brooklyn, had worked for the TSA for over four years, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.
‘We do hold our officers to very high standards, and we have a zero tolerance policy for theft in the workplace,’ Ms Farbstein said.
This has been a bad public relations week for the TSA, as the news of Ms Schmid’s arrest comes the same week as a security officer in the Dallas Fort Worth airport was put on leave after he was found with eight iPads that he stole from checked luggage.
Police said Clayton Keith Dovel, 35, worked in a ‘resolution room’ at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where checked bags are examined before they’re placed on a flight.
‘The action of one individual in now way reflects on the outstanding job our more than 50,000 security officers do every day,’ the administration’s statement said.
The 31-year-old Ms Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation. Her attorney’s name wasn’t immediately known.
Ms Schmid, who lives in Brooklyn, had worked for the TSA for over four years, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.
‘We do hold our officers to very high standards, and we have a zero tolerance policy for theft in the workplace,’ Ms Farbstein said.
This has been a bad public relations week for the TSA, as the news of Ms Schmid’s arrest comes the same week as a security officer in the Dallas Fort Worth airport was put on leave after he was found with eight iPads that he stole from checked luggage.
Police said Clayton Keith Dovel, 35, worked in a ‘resolution room’ at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where checked bags are examined before they’re placed on a flight.
‘The action of one individual in now way reflects on the outstanding job our more than 50,000 security officers do every day,’ the administration’s statement said.
OTHER CRIMINAL SECURITY GUARDS
In January, authorities charged an agent at Miami International Airport with swiping items and luggage and smuggling them out of the airport in a hidden pocket of his work jacket. He was arrested after one of the items, an iPad, was spotted for sale on Craigslist.
Two other former TSA agents at JFK were sentenced on Jan. 10 to six months in jail and five years’ probation for stealing $40,000 from a piece of luggage in January 2011. The agents, Coumar Persad and Davon Webb, had pleaded guilty to grand larceny, obstructing governmental administration and official misconduct.
Last year, a TSA supervisor and one of his officers pleaded guilty in a scheme that lifted $10,000 to $30,000 from passengers’ belongings at Newark Liberty International Airport. A federal judge sentenced the supervisor, Michael Arato, to two-and-a-half years in prison and his subordinate, Al Raimi, to six months of home confinement.