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TSA Employee Stole $50k Worth of Electronics
mrquagmire writes "A Continental Airlines employee Monday caught Nelson Santiago-Serrano, 30, stealing an iPad from a suitcase in Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Over the past six months, Santiago-Serrano told authorities he stole $50,000 worth of computers, GPS devices and other electronics from luggage he screened, took pictures of them to post for sale online and sold the items often by the time his shift ended."
Thank god for the TSA. I feel safer already.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Gee, I wonder if the TSA will still claim, "our boys followed procedure, we stand behind them."
What a laughing stock the TSA has become.
Why does this not surprise me. Keep an eye on this I bet he gets a slap on the hand.
Because who wants fragmented software and hardware?
Who watches the watcher? No, do not look in the direction of Washington DC. Nobody there cares.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If they can take something out without getting caught, they could be putting something in. Who would bother with suicide bombs if they can slip it into the luggage?
Think of how many terrorists he stopped though!
So all anyone has to do to get past secuirty at an airport is pretent to be a TSA agent.
A few years back I had a suitcase stolen in Florida on Continental airlines. I was loaded down with vintage real to real tapes and audio gear (modern and old). The real to real tapes and some of the audio gear belonged to my grandfather, which I was restoring for the family. I never did get it back and Continental declined my claim. I hope he lands in PIMA Federal Prison, some of the items I will never be able to recover.
Maybe he sold a bunch of bombs, too.
They were as good at security as they were at stealing!
Just disguise your electronics to look like a bomb. That'll ensure they make it safely to their destination. /joke
My luggage gets searched all the time. I'm pretty sure they've never taken anything - at least not anything I've ever missed - from my luggage. But really, if something was taken I wouldn't have any recourse for it. Who would you report it to? How would you prove it was there to begin with? Being as you release your checked bags before you even go through security, and they pass through multiple hands before they even get on to your plane, there is a chain of inaccountability. Even if you did something obscure but unique to identify your property you still wouldn't be able to prove who took it by the time it showed up on the black market.
And of course, if you're like me and you don't live near a hub airport - therefore you need to take connections all the time - you and your luggage go through that many more sets of gates and hands before getting to your destination.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If he's been confessing for that long, you'd think they'd have stopped him before!
(Sponsored by the grammar police)
How many bombs, IEDs and other dangerous items did he confiscate and sell online?
I'm sure there was a very good reason why he was touching people's luggage.
Being molested, xrayed, shown naked on a screen, and robbed is a small price to pay to keep terrorists from taking away my freedom!
And I thought that only happened in Argentina...
Dressing them in a uniform and giving them arrest-authority would suddenly make a poorly educated, under-class person magically transform into an upstanding middle-class person with a passion for doing their job to the best of their abilities?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
It is illegal for them to open your bag without you being present, if you have a firearm declared. (I guess the government doesn't trust the TSA near guns...if only they'd expand that mistrust to all the federal alphabet soup criminals).
I discovered this accidentally, because I usually take at least one pistol whenever I fly anywhere, and have been using it ever since. If I'm going some place anti-gun, like Chicago or CA, I take a firearm component, like a barrel, which still has to be checked the same way, but can't get me into trouble on the trip.
http://www.yourfunnystuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/And-then-the-TSA-touch-their-balls%E2%80%A6.jpg
...which really is the sole source of what passes for MainStreamMedia in the US, ever report that the organization which vets, or does the background checks for the TSA, is Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater USA??? Never, never will they ever report that very crucial fact, which may be why over 55 sky marshals (the doods with the guns aboard the jetliners) have been fired, and/or convicted and jailed for everything from human trafficking, to drug smuggling, rape, etc., etc.? Blackwater OK's the crooks, so the TSA is full of crooks.
In other news, the TSA continues to steal your 4th Amendment rights. You know, the certain inalienable rights that millions of us have died for?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Please cite the source of your information.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
do a search on how many guns are stolen from checked baggage.
List of TSA Salary I doublt Mr Serrano, or for that matter, any of the pseudo-cop screeners are being paid at band F or above.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Does the TSA have a PowerSeller rating?
Did he happen to sell any bombs on ebay? :P
Please, lets not forget we have to protect the children from terrorists. So what is the price of some electronic junk being stolen, or perhaps some discomfort as the TSA searches your body in comparison to the safety of the children. We should thank this thief for he will make people carry less stuff out of fear of being stolen, hence there will be less stuff to search and fewer places to hide a bomb that might hurt the children.
Take the Red Pill.
It's not so much an outrage of the theft of items from baggage, it happens from time to time and sometimes it's the handlers. It's clearly wrong and clearly theft.
What's really interesting is all the stuff being confiscated, like this politician's bottle of tequila. OK, he shouldn't have brought it on board the plane, but what's really telling is that they take it and noone knows what happens with it afterwards. Sure they will have plenty of pictures of the cheap stuff getting destroyed. But who's going to miss the small percentage actual good stuff that gets taken home and sold/given/traded with friends or acquaintances?
He also stole my 90 year old Grandmothers adult diaper...
Quite frankly, I think the TSA itself should be on the hook.
The TSA is supposed to be protecting us, and I consider it at the least grossly negligent for them to allow one of their own to pull off something like this for SIX FUCKING MONTHS without getting caught.
They're supposed to be running background checks on these people, and besides that I wouldn't doubt that his victims have filed plenty of police reports or complaints of some sort, so the powers that be are either completely blind, or are in on it somehow.
6 months of looting the baggage of travelers? Not a fucking accident.
More to the point:
There is no valid reason that I shouldn't be able to demand that my property be inspected in my presence and then be allowed to lock it securely before it is trundled off to the baggage handlers. Even if the TSA was above reproach, baggage handlers are not a group to be blindly trusted either.
There are events that I used to go to by air that I can't go to anymore. When you are traveling an item that a fingerprint can cause $2000 of damage to either you drive or you don't go.
The most laptops I ever checked through security was 16 (across 2 bags). None were stolen, though one of the displays was cracked once. When they re-packed they did it poorly hence the breakage.
I really like the firearm idea presented elsewhere in this thread.
Obscure? No, you're supposed to engrave your social security number on your personal property. I learned that when I was a kid. My SSN is on pretty much everything I own. The US Army even printed my SSN on my duffel bag so people would know it was mine.
Even if you did something obscure but unique to identify your property you still wouldn't be able to prove who took it by the time it showed up on the black market.
Obscure? No, you're supposed to engrave your social security number on your personal property. I learned that when I was a kid. My SSN is on pretty much everything I own. The US Army even printed my SSN on my duffel bag so people would know it was mine
I hope you included your birthday, full name, mailing address, and mother's maiden name to make it easier for your items to make it home!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Why would you leave electronics in anything but carry on luggage? It seems logical that you can't trust anyone at the airport with your personal property. After Continental snuck in the 25$ fee for checked bags I'm actually considering packing light and sending it ahead via UPS. Everything having to do with air travel is one big racket and if you believe otherwise you deserve what's coming to you. In other news TSA agent gets commendation for stealing potentially hazardous personal electronics. Said the agent involved "I had to steal it. That Ipad could have been used to remotely detonate a bomb. In other news today the notorious hacker group Lulsec claims responsibility for taking down the TSA site. An Anonymous member was quoted as saying "Those punks just had to pay".
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Its cheaper to walk to the moon than be humiliated at the airport by this heavy handed defeat all because of a handful of assholes hellbent on America's destruction.
I hope the robots take over soon, this may very well be the best example of why humans should never have power over segments of the populace. Greed is just too damn delicious for humans in power, like a hot hooker, you know it's wrong but you don't care trying it multiple times once you are addicted. In my experience it has been and always will be the people with badges (in concert with holier than thou attitudes) who are the most likely to commit a crime due to their self serving nature. Give someone REAL power and they WILL abuse it, it's simply human nature and a proven fact based on far too many historical trends (nations were formed out of corruption, hell your ancestors swam across the Atlantic to start anew without corruption!). For the uninitiated and the naysayers who believe in rosy pictures of those in power all conforming to duty and honor (like some very bad movies), honesty died with chivalry, it's all a veneer of humoring people into believing in authority because they are somehow better than you or me. The only thing anyone can do to stop this behavior is to discourage it through SEVERE punishment, FIRE him, make him pay back what he sold for profit and put him in jail for a long time. Not like any of that will actually happen but hey one can dream?
Honestly, anytime you give people making close to minimum wage a position of almost complete authority with little or no oversight and severely incompetent management, this is what happens. It's a recipe for exactly this kind of problem. As an ex-military person, I can attest the military is no better.
when you find one, there's many more you didn't.
Those cocksuckers swiped a camera from my bag several years ago. TSA pointed the finger at Continental, Continental pointed the finger at TSA. Both parties basically said "Tough shit". Baggage is only covered at $0.50 per pound -- but ANYTHING of any value is specifically excluded. So if they steal electronics, jewelry, anything other than basically clothing, it's just tough shit.
Fuck 'em. I'd been a loyal Continental customer for years. After that incident and, shortly after that, trying in vain to find a way to actually use the many, many frequent flyer miles I had accumulated, I finally had had enough. Haven't set foot on a Continental flight nor given them a penny of revenue in several years now. Not that they cared in the slightest.
My point when I complained about my missing shit was, if someone were willing to commit a felony for a box of Hot Tamales (the only other thing missing from my bag), what could I have put IN a bag for, say, $10K? How about $50K? Somehow these shitheads don't make me feel any safer flying.
They will have to start subjecting TSA employees to the same levels of scrutiny that they inflict upon the general public. I doubt it as there would be too many human rights complaints.
Ironically, this is almost on-topic.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
done by the lizard guys, the ones who made Super Troopers/Slammin Salmon.
They are well suited for that, comon writers! write a script
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It reminds me of another story...
A french person ordered a tiny spy camera from some HK store and the parcel was delivered by the post office. When he received the parcel, he was very surprised to see that the parcel had been opened and even more surprised to see a postman head on the recorded video of the cam... The postman did not understand what it was...
http://www.lesnumeriques.com/geek-1-livreur-0-webcam-gagne-news-9009.html [in french]
Maybe the idea is to put a spycam in your luggage...
Taking Stuff Agency ?
I'm more surprised that people are still putting computers and other electronics in their checked baggage than I am that a TSA agent is stealing stuff.
Wow. Put it in your carry-on, people. The only thing in my checked bag is my clothes and if they want to steal my dirty underwear they can have at it.
Does that mean I have to share all my belongings with the illegal immigrant who stole my SSN?
This is far from the first or only instance of this kind of abuse happening at the hands of TSA.
http://www.travelunderground.org/index.php?pages/tsa-abuse-master-lists/#BillFisher
I co-founded Travel Underground as a way to track, report, and fight back against TSA violations of traveller rights. If you're at all interested we'd love to have you there to help build cases against the TSA to present to the media, Congress, anyone who'll help get the word out. Yes, this is a shameless plug for the site but I think it's a worthwhile effort.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
I had my suitcase examined at a small rural airport in Mexico (QRO). personnel were extremely courteous, asked me nicely to unlock case, examined it quickly, and were almost apologetic and thankful. Compare that JFK or even small US airports, where you can't even lock ur suitcases. I've had a camera, gps, and leather man stolen by airport personnel. Motherfuckers.
In Russia, less security theater, more real security
It is common practice to completely wrap luggage in shrink wrap. Lots of kiosks inside the airport offer this service. All bags are x-rayed when entering the airport, even those folks just dropping passengers off. Lots of military/security guys with dogs walking around. I assume that checked baggage may be x-rayed (neutron scanned, etc) or inspected but I never saw a bag with the shrink wrapped shredded or removed. I think the shrink wrap is a much greater deterrent to the thieving baggage handler than to the security folks.
look it up, butthead, you do know how to use the Internet?
-- sgt_doom
As the economy has grown worse, everyone gets more and more desperate.
If you do happen to get something stolen, I would report it to police and on a free site like http://www.stolen-property.com/