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."

Comments

Security FAIL

[putaro]

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?

Re:Security FAIL

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I was going to subscribe to your newsletter, but then I thought about how many dead uppity stewardesses would result from armed passengers, and then I really wanted to subscribe to your newsletter.

TSA: taking freedom so terrorists don't have to

[mykos]

Being molested, xrayed, shown naked on a screen, and robbed is a small price to pay to keep terrorists from taking away my freedom!

Re:How many get away with it?

[GNUman]

I once had a Sony PSP and an iPod stolen from my baggage on a Continental Airlines flight going out from Newark Airport (Yes, I should've taken them in my carry on, I had no space left and was overly trusting).

I complained to Continental Airlines and they basically said "Tough luck, we don't go through your baggage, it's the TSA. Take it up with them." They added "We do recommend our passengers to avoid putting any electronics in their baggage".

TSA has a form you can fill to file a complaint. It includes sending the receipts of your stolen objects and witnesses that confirm you did have them in your baggage and witnesses that confirm they were not there when you arrived. Then they supposedly "start an investigation".

I had lost the receipts of my items and being outside the US it was difficult to go to the store and try to get a copy. So I never submitted the papers. I did learn my lesson. Never put electronics in your baggage, it will come up in scans and become an excuse for someone to open it.

How to avoid the TSA thieves

[kwiqsilver]

If you must fly, here's what to do:

• Buy a hard plastic or metal suitcase with locks.
• Buy a pistol, if you don't have one already. (A starter pistol, which has no legal restrictions on ownership or purchase in any state, works just as well).
• Put your pistol in the suitcase, check-in at the counter, and tell the airline rep you have a firearm to declare.
• Fill out the card that says your firearm is unloaded, put it in your suitcase, and lock it (with real locks, not TSA-approved ones), while the airline rep watches.
• Walk down to the TSA screener with the airline rep, and hand your bag over.
• The TSA screener will scan your bag while you wait. If there's a need to open it, the screener will have you open it, and will look through the bag while you watch.

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.

Re:Funny That

[todrules]

Actually, if you really want it to get there, buy a starter pistol and pack it in the suitcase. Then, you have to declare that you have a firearm when you check it. Believe me, that suitcase will have tons of security. Nobody will steal anything from there. Also, since it's a starter pistol and not a real pistol, you don't have to worry about the gun laws in the state you are traveling to.

Re:once again, we ask -

[IonOtter]

Except that Texas chickened out and backed off. The TSA threated to designate the entire state of Texas a "no-fly zone".

However, it would seem that a few legislators actually used their brains and thought about that for a moment, and decided to push the issue and call the government's bluff.

I mean, seriously. Who actually believes that the feds would actually BAN all flights in and out of Texas?

Please...

Liberty safely removed...

[Gription]

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.

Re:How many get away with it?

[stephanruby]

You should have submitted the papers anyway. It doesn't matter if they're properly filled out, or not. It's not like they were going to reimburse you anyway. You fill out the papers, so that at least, your incident gets recorded in their statistics.

Often times, authorities try to dissuade you from filling out paperwork, bad statistics make their bosses look bad, but then again, if no incident is ever recorded or filed, it's as if your incident never even officially occurred.