From CNET – Are you the type of airline passenger who, when your hand luggage goes through security, tries to peer all the way into the machine, just to check that nothing will be tampered with?
You may have good reason to do so, if a story from Florida holds up in court. In one incident, Broward County Sheriff’s Office says that Nelson Santiago, 30, allegedly removed an iPad from a passenger’s suitcase and then, well, stuffed it down his pants.
This was allegedly witnessed by a Continental Airlines employee at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport. In total, Santiago is alleged to have stolen around $50,000 worth of passengers’ possessions over a six-month period, mainly gadgets of one kind or another. In one case, he is alleged to have stolen a GPS.
He has been charged with grand theft and apparently no longer works for the TSA.
“and apparently no longer works for the TSA.”
Fired just because he commited a felony while on the job? Well, they obviously have a crappy union negotiator! I bet he gets to keep his pension though.
Oh friggin Great! Now you can’t even trust the friggin TSA agents not to steal your stuff. And how was he able to get away with it for so long, if other TSA agents weren’t looking the other way, and not ratting him out. I suspect they only caught one rotten apple in the barrel, there. This is exactly why so much carry on luggage has to be checked. Because in the past, the airports’ baggage handlers were also pilfering people’s belonging, right inside the plane’s cargo hold. And the airports were lacks about stopping this. So carry on luggage of things like laptops and cameras, increased. There’s an old Tv commercial (probably on YouTube) of a guy who checks his laptop on a plane. And then realizes his horrible mistake. So thru the whole commercial he crying about it. Presumably worried it will be damaged. But it looked more like he feared he’s never see it again (lost or stolen?). It did arrive, unscathed, supposedly attributing to the brand’s ruggedness. Which is a total laugh, eh?
Here’s that commercial, just for a laugh. It’s a Toshiba Notebook ad. “I checked my notebook!”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mtml5rWA9ZQ
“…if a story from Florida holds up in court.”
I think it will hold up. He’s confessed. Should be fairly easy to track that $50K of stuff he swiped. eBay sales leave a good, traceable record.
The really interesting thing to me is that he must be working alone! Otherwise, you’d think that during the $50,000 worth of acquisitions, another TSA would have noticed. But, instead, the act is witnessed by a passing airline employee! Something smells fishy… and I don’t mean Janet Napolitano!
An old thought about theft in company/service.
That you MUST pay employees enough to counter (lessen) the chance that they WISH to steal.
Since this nation has changed from being the ALMIGHTY fair and equal, and being NICE to each other…to the realm of the mighty dollar..
These folks are probably being paid UNDER a fair amount. (and probably for the area) a good deal below poverty level.
Considering the structure of BUSINESS in the USA.. The pay structure..
Employee(Pay #1)
Advisor(Pay#2)
Level Boss(pay#4)
Regional Boss(Pay#10)
Top boss #1 (pay#100)
Top boss #2 (pay#100)
And the USA citizen, is probably paying out 10 times the money for that 1 persons JOB.
NOT the airline, NOT the person taking the flight. YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT..
“Hey, you wanna buy a iPad?”
It would be interesting to put in a sort of ‘nannycam’ in luggage to see who opens it and what happens.
In # 2 Glenn E. said: “ airports were lacks“.
Its lax, like the airport.
Words matter.
If I were to ever fly again (and at my age, I don’t have to worry about radiation messing with my junk so I could go through the scanner [after having fun making comments about dosimeters and carrying a fluorescent tube,]) I’d put a lovely sign on my luggage about everything valuable in there being hooked up to the internet and having a GPS, meaning its toxic as far as thieves are concerned since I can always find it anywhere on the planet, and the rest just being old clothes and crap.
Luckily, I take the train everywhere and when the TSA moves into that territory I’ll start driving again. (My insurance agent is probably having a fit right now! 🙂
If I ever have to fly, I think I’ll just FedEx whatever I need for the trip to myself. Must remember to arrange for that with the hotel concierge or front desk or whoever…
In # 6 Animby said: But, instead, the act is witnessed by a passing airline employee!
Did you really think any of his minimum-wage, minimum IQ, glow in the dark, low-expectation, dead-beat, dead-end TSA buddies would rat him out?
They might have to share a cell with him… As it is, they’re probably sharing in the booty.
Having a TSA job means that you don’t even have the skills to hold a gun or the entre gens people skills to ask: you want fries with that.
In # 11 Uncle Patso said: …remember to arrange for that with the hotel concierge…
By the end of my career, I could arrange for a laptop to be rented to me by the destination, travel with no luggage, just buy some clothes and some toiletries at the nearest Sears, pick up the laptop, connect with the Citrix servers here and just go and do the job there.
Apart from going on vacation, I can’t think of a single reason to travel anymore more that a few miles in any direction.
All of the travelling I did in the eighties and nineties could have been handled with telepresence and in the noughties I was working for an off-shore out-sourcing firm out of Bangalore which did all of the work while I supervised/managed it from here.
I’d like to see the disappearance of the travel industry in my lifetime, and the TSA’s making that shit happen.
Well, I guess it depends which crime the TSA tolerates. You can sexually abuse the passengers, (also called screening) and get congratulated but touching someone’s iPad is a no no.
At Miami airport they have a service that wraps your checked luggage in saran wrap. I watched passenger after passenger pay a couple of bucks to do this. Then it dawned on me why. All of these passengers were flying to Latin American countries and totally expected all their goods to be stolen out of their luggage. I’ve heard time and time again that trying to mail anything of value to Columbia will be stolen by postal employees. And that anything of value in checked luggage will be looted.
I wonder if we will start needed to saran wrap all our domestic luggage soon?
If Apple Fanbois actually had pockets like that for their iPads, Their asses would be getting kicked left and right.
TSA are private contract employees. Another problem with using contractors instead of real government employees.
I wonder what his contract says
2k a month plus performance incentive? — if you’re good to steal an iPad you get to keep it.
I wonder if MobileME (or whatever they call it now) can activate the camera remotely, that’s the best evidence you can get.
I’d venture to say that Pedro carries nothing the TSA would want to steal.
/maybe the weed whacker.
This story has a hole in it.
The story insinuates that this happened with carry-on luggage at the screening machine.
Wouldn’t the passenger scream bloody murder is their iPad went in the xray machine and didn’t come out the other end?