Airline worker smuggles guns, pot on flight

[Soldier4Christ]

Airline worker smuggles guns, pot on flight
13 pistols, M-16-type automatic weapon among items found in Orlando

An airline employee at Orlando International Airport used his security privileges on Monday to sneak a duffle bag containing 13 handguns, an assault rifle and eight pounds of marijuana aboard a Delta flight to San Juan.

Puerto Rico Police arrested Thomas Anthony Muñoz, 22, of Kissimmee, and confiscated the weapons after he walked off Delta Airlines flight 933 Monday afternoon.

It was unclear Tuesday night precisely who notified Puerto Rico authorities at San Juan's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, but it's possible that Muñoz's arrest was part of a larger gun-running and drug investigation.

A sworn affidavit by an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Puerto Rico states that police on the island were tipped by authorities in Orlando.

According to ATF agent Marco Carrillo's affidavit, Muñoz used his Comair Airlines identification card to sneak the weapons on board.

Muñoz told Carrillo that another employee at the Orlando airport recruited him to smuggle the drugs and guns on board after learning that he was having money problems.

That employee, identified in the affidavit only as ZAB, told Muñoz he had smuggled guns and drugs to Puerto Rico before. He then offered Muñoz about $4,000 to $5,000 to do the same, Carrillo wrote in the affidavit.

Carrillo went on to describe how the two men planned the deal:

On Friday, March 2, they met at a convenience store in Kissimmee where ZAB received two wire transfers for $1,800 from a contact in Puerto Rico.

The next day, they returned to the same store and received another wire transfer of an undetermined amount of money.

Then, on Sunday, Muñoz went to ZAB's house in Kissimmee where he watched the man pack the duffle bag with marijuana and weapons that he had bought at a gun show in Tampa.

At about 2 a.m. Monday, Muñoz returned to ZAB's house where the two men plotted how Munoz would skirt the security network at the airport.

They arrived at the airport an hour later and gained access to restricted areas by using their identification cards, Carrillo stated.

That's how Muñoz was able to sneak the bag past the airport check points manned by the Transportation Security Agency.

He placed the guns and drugs at a secure area near a departure gate, and by 11:04 a.m. he was boarding the plane with the duffle bag.

Puerto Rico police superintendent Pedro Toledo said Tuesday that gun running from the mainland -- especially Central Florida -- is a major problem on the island that fuels a black market and a high murder rate.

"I don't know when TSA agents in Orlando learned what was going on, or why they didn't stop this person in Orlando, but it could've been that they learned about afterwards," Toledo said.

A TSA spokesman in Washington would not say when or how the agency's Orlando personnel found out about the drugs and guns in the commercial airliner.

"We can't discuss the details of an ongoing criminal investigation," said TSA spokesman Christopher White. "What we can say is that no weapons were brought through the security checkpoints and that at no time were passengers in danger."

Muñoz, 22, is a Kissimmee resident. He has been a Comair employee for three years and worked at the Orlando International Airport, said Kate Marx, a spokeswoman for the airline.

uñoz, who has been suspended, is a customer service agent at Comair a job that allows him to work both the check-in counter and the area where planes are loaded and unloaded, Marx said.

Charles Slepian, an aviation security expert, said Muñoz's easy access to secure areas underscores a serious security problem. Airport workers, he said, are not subject to the same searches that airline passengers go through.

At Orlando International Airport workers are not routinely searched at the beginning of their shifts or any other time.

It would not be difficult for an employee "to take drugs or guns or a bomb or a biological weapon or anything else into the airport," said Slepian, chief executive officer of the New York-based Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a firm that consults with airlines and airports.

While TSA agents examine all passengers and airline crew along with their carry-on luggage and, separately, checked bags, workers come and go from the airport freely.

Only in September did TSA begin random checks of airport employees.

"Access to the back of the airport still has not been zipped up," Slepian said. "Nobody should be permitted to have access to the airplane, to baggage, to supplies or to cargo without going through the same screening that you or I go through."

Toledo pointed out what he sees as another major flaw in the system. People on the mainland, he said, are allowed to transport weapons aboard commercial airlines as long as they follow TSA rules.

Among other restrictions, people must declare that they have a gun or guns prior to boarding. They must show permits for guns they are transporting. They must place the guns in secure containers with locks. The guns may not contain any ammunition.

But TSA does not limit the number of weapons that can be transported.

Puerto Rico's gun laws are much more restrictive than those in many states on the mainland, Toledo said. So in many cases, once the guns arrive on the island, they are no longer legal unless the carrier has a permit from authorities there.

"What is being happening is that people would buy guns in Orlando and other places to sell them in the black market," Toledo said.

Puerto Rico has one of the toughest gun laws in the nation, which make buying, selling and bearing weapons difficult. Consequently, guns that sell at under $200 at a U.S. Wal-Mart, can command more than $1,000 on the island's black market.