Air travelers may be shocked to discover that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who screen their bags at the airport aren’t always model citizens who are dedicated to protecting passengers.
New video surveillance footage has just been released, which shows three TSA agents allegedly acting together to steal from passengers’ bags while screening them through a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport.
Three TSA officers, Labarrius Williams (33), Josue Gonzalez (20) and Elizabeth Fuster (22), were all arrested back in July and indicted for “organized scheme to defraud”. The defendants now face charges of “grand theft in the third degree”, although the case against Fuster reportedly has been dropped.
The Florida State Attorney’s Office released several video clips that appear to show Williams and Gonzalez, after placing passengers’ bags in screening bins, going back to surreptitiously upzip them and pocket items before running them through the CT scanner. According to the arrest report, the airport’s federal security director was the person who contacted Miami-Dade Police about ongoing thefts occurring at a TSA checkpoint in Concourse E.
According to a police report, the two agents are suspected to have deliberately distracted passengers while their bags were being screened in order to“steal monies from their belongings". The report said the pair is suspected of, "removing $600 from a passenger's wallet, while the passenger was in the screening process."
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News, Gonzalez admitted to purposely distracting passengers so that he could still cash. Gonzalez’ attorney confirmed that his client has qualified for a state-run “deferred prosecution program”, which will see the charges dropped if he completes a required course. Williams, however, does not qualify for the program and the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts shows he has a trial date set for October.
One passenger voiced the question that we’re all probably wondering. “Don’t they realize they’re on camera?" air traveler David Caban asked CBS News reporters. "These are places that are monitored so much. What are they thinking?" True, they couldn't exactly be called criminal masterminds.
In a statement regarding the recent string of incidents, the TSA said, "The Transportation Security Administration holds its Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) to the highest professional and ethical standards and has no tolerance for misconduct in the workplace.
"Any employee who fails to meet our fundamental ethical standards is held accountable. When this incident occurred in July, TSA took immediate action, when an employee quickly followed up on a complaint, watched CCTV, and shared findings with the police who took immediate action.
"TSA immediately removed the three TSOs from screening, pending completion of the investigation and administrative actions," the statement reads. "The TSOs were also placed in non-pay status. TSA actively and aggressively investigated these allegations of misconduct and presented our findings to the Miami-Dade Police Department, and TSA Special Agents been working closely with them. For more information on the investigation, please contact Miami-Dade Police Department."
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