Classic Inside Job (JFK baggage handlers smuggled $$ millions in drugs)

1010 WINS, NEW YORK ^ | Nov 25, 2003 3:12 pm | 1010Wins

[Calpernia]

A network of Kennedy Airport baggage handlers smuggled tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana into the United States by exploiting its access to airplanes and cargo, federal officials charged Tuesday.

Twenty-five people, nearly all current or former employees at Kennedy, were arrested and faced arraignment at federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon on charges of conspiring to import controlled substances, prosecutors said.

The defendants helped import hundreds of kilograms worth of cocaine and hundreds of pounds worth of marijuana in a scheme that one top investigator called "a potential threat to homeland security."

"A network of corrupt airport employees, motivated by greed, might just as well have been collaborating with terrorists," the investigator, Michael J. Garcia, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement.

Those charged in the case are current or former baggage handlers or other ground crew members for American Airlines and at least three other smaller companies operating at Kennedy.

Federal agents who began conducting surveillance on flights from Guyana 14 months ago watched suspects unload drugs stashed in luggage, cargo and, in one case, under ice in a plane's galley, officials said.

The drugs were then diverted around border inspection areas and handed off for distribution inside the U.S., officials said.

In September, federal agents seized a pallet loaded with three boxes of cocaine weighing about 185 kilos and worth about $23 million, officials said.

[genefromjersey]

I believe any society has the right - and the obligation -to draw a line in the sand.

We draw such lines when it comes to crimes against persons and property-and we draw them for a reason : that reason being society needs and demands such laws.

Drug laws-in all their spiderweb intricacy-did not just happen. They were passed,long before most of us were born,because drugs had become an everyday evil in society. Infants were drugged with opiate syrups to keep them quiet. Dangerously addictive morphine derivatives were prescribed-or sold over the counter-with no more consideration than we give aspirin.Opium dens operated more-or-less openly, and promising lives went up in smoke and dreams.

This first "war on drugs" was very nearly won, with a combination of legal, moral,and societal sanctions.Drug use was a "wrong side of the street" thing for at least half of the 20th century :It was "just not done"; and those who used drugs were pitied-or, at the very least, thought to be strange,backward,alien.

The 1960's came, and drug use was suddenly glamorized. It is still glamorized, in spite of the monstrous wreckage it has caused. (Tune in any late night comedy show,and you'll hear at least 2 drug-related jokes, which receive thunderous applause.)

Society has spent billions trying to undo the deliberate machinations of those who wanted to pull it down-and will probably spend billions more-most of which will be in vain.

Does this mean Society should forfeit the battle, or that it should change tactics ?

_{ps: If we forfeit the battle, why not give up on other laws as well, and revert to anarchic savagery ?}

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Yes, I was thinking of a mid-sized wastebasket (the round-topped ones with the swinging door, about 30" or so high.

There is lots of information available on the widespread thievery and smuggling by baggage handlers at practically every airport- New York and Miami seem to be the worst, for obvious reasons. As I understand it, if you won't take part in stealing luggage, smuggling, etc, you might as well go look for amother job- because a bad accident could happen to anyone, you know?

[185JHP]

Truth with the bark off.

[jettester]

While working at MDC here on the left coast, a story went around about one of our Field Maintenance guys troubleshooting an AA DC-9/MD-80 at JFK. It seems he had to get access behind the beauty panels on the sidewalls of the cockpit - lo' and behold, someone had stashed large quantities of coke behind the panels. Because the pilot had radioed the problem to his ground crews, it appears the repairs were done before the unscrupulous "pick-up" person was able to get it out.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

It is a little hard to see how drug use could get much more widespread than it is now in this country- teachers, lawyers, judges, politicians, executives, mechanics, junior-high school kids, and probably the clowns at the circus are all using drugs. This battle (and the war) has already been lost. It has been a rout, worse than the Gallipoli disaster of WWI.

Let's at least try to get rid of the huge profits made by the dealers, and the immense amount of civic corruption that has resulted from the drug war.

Is that what I consider the perfect solution? No. But there is no feasable way to get drugs out of our society right now.

[Lion in Winter]

Did you know that muslim Albanians are the biggest drug smugglers and sexual-slavers in Europe?

Well, according to INTERPOL... they are.

[genefromjersey]

I'll repeat myself ( a common thing for old farts like me ):
We need a new war on drugs: one that will win the hearts and minds of our citizens; because only aggressive social pressure will do the job.

The next comedian who tells an "in joke" about drugs should be booed off the stage.The sponsors of the show should be flooded with angry letters, and boycotted,if necessary,until they get the message.

Those of us-in this very forum-who continue to advocate adolescent points of view about drugs, need to "take a little walk on the wild side" and see with their own eyes what drugs are doing to all of us. You need to see addicts "coming down" : all covered with sweat;wrapped in blankets in 90 degree heat;their noses running;their eyes watering; their whiney voices begging for "just a taste,man !" ( I saw it every day for 17 years, and can tell you it ain't pretty ! )

If you're still seething with adolescent rebellion against society, consider this: If society abandons enforcement of one set of laws to make YOU happy, why should it enforce ANY of them ? Neighbor stole your car ? TS !!Boss didn't feel like paying you ? Toughski,baby !

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

[A network of Kennedy Airport baggage handlers smuggled tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana into the United States by exploiting its access to airplanes and cargo, federal officials charged Tuesday.]

Our Homeland Security System at work. I wonder how the diversity quota system is working, in terms of hiring lots of ROP members, so that airport security "looks like America" or some other claptrap? Wonder what al-queda is paying these days for smuggling WMD's into the country?

[Calpernia]

You are right. When a situation looks hopeless, we should give up. Always better to conform to the masses then to stand up and do the right thing.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"The next comedian who tells an "in joke" about drugs should be booed off the stage..."

You seem to think that I disagree with you that drugs are bad- for individuals and for our society. You would be wrong. I agree completely.

BUT, let's take just the relatively simple "baby step" you suggested above- EXACTLY WHO IS GOING TO BOO JAY LENO, et al, off the stage? Who?

No, this war is over, and we should try to mitigate as much of the consequences of the defeat as we can. There are many books outlining what needs to be done, I don't propose to synopsize them here.

But what we are doing is not working- and (almost) everyone knows it. Some sort of "decriminalization" is inevitable. I think that we are very, very close to the maximum number of people that can be jailed or otherwise punished for drug possession/drug use in this country.

The way people and societies behave, it is likely that the pendulum will swing back sometime in the future- another "Great Awakening", perhaps. When that finally happens, the "demand side" of the drug equation will drop back to some low value, and the "supply side" will perforce do the same.

I doubt that I will still be around when that finally happens, and it will not be brought about by the WOD tactics we are using now.

[oceanview]

I saw the guys arrested in the perp walk, I retract my previous statement, they all appeared to be Jamaican, west indies, central america.

[eno_]

Drugs, and anything else the government decides is contraband, is very different from laws protecting people and property. The first is a law against trade, and the latter are laws against harm to others and their property.

People have a fundamental urge to traffic in whatever the market will bear. The only market that has been successfully broken is the market in slaves, and that only in places that are sufficiently respectful of people and their rights.

It is a bad thing to be an addict. But it is a much worse thing to make drugs contraband. In addition to addicts you get smugglers, thugs, bent cops, corrupted airport rampers, etc.

[eno_]

Pop quiz: Who is the most famous drug addict in America?

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

JFK.

[7MMmag]

American Airlines, huh?
Oh, right!--THAT Air America!
(was westmoreland as guilty as some say he was??)

[seamas]

No, these were largely Guianese immigrants from S. America. You remember, Jim Jones and all that. There is a huge contingent of them in Brooklyn. Charlotte, Jacksonville, and Miami. Curious, that sounds like a drug trail. Well, I suspect that it is indeed just that. There are , of course, some Virgin Islanders, etc. , in the indictment. They are US citizens, but on the whole the usual story of legal, quasi-legal, and Americans involved in a sordid program of bringing drugs from SA to the US for big money.

[Calpernia]

Rush Limbaugh. Fame doesn't make wrong right.

[eno_]

You might be right. Anyone here have access to a Marketing Evaluations Q score report comparing JFK's and Rush's recognizability?

[eno_]

Fame has little to do with it. You walk among addicts every day. The Drug War helps almost none of them. It harms some of them. It has no effect on the vast majority of them. Very very few of them look like a Lower East Side needle-junkie rocker. For 90% of addicts, the drug of choice is alcohol.

The Drug War has to be evaluated in light of its costs and its (very low) effectiveness. In this case, the cost is to corrupt an organization that is critical to air safety. It is all a question of what your priorities are.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "IS" is. If you mean a LIVING drug addict, I would be able to list several hundred entertainers, politicians, star athletes in all sports, etc, most of whom would be better-known than Rush.

But then, Rush is (if you believe him, which I do) a former addict, so he would not be covered by your question, either...