You probably don’t realise it, but hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods pass through airports every day inside of passengers’ baggage. Well, a ring of baggage handlers at LAX certainly realised it. Police say they have been stealing thousands of dollars worth of goods right out of people’s suitcases for months.
Earlier this week, a joint task force arrested six people suspected of being involved in one of the biggest property thefts in airport history. This was no Ocean’s Eleven-calibre heist, either. “Basically everything of value — be it electronics, jewelry and items — that could be stolen in seconds would be removed from bags,” LAX Police Chief Pat Gannon told the press. “They’d just open up the suitcases and rifle through them and pocket valuables.” Then the baggage handlers would sell the stuff on Craigslist.
This isn’t the first time a scheme like this has cropped up at LAX. In 2007, another ring of 11 airport workers were suspected of stealing valuables from passengers, including a $US100,000 watch that belonged to Paris Hilton. So this latest heist just gives you one more reason to lock your luggage . Of course, there’s no guarantees that the TSA won’t just cut it right off. [Los Angeles Times]
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