Man smuggled guns, marijuana on flight from Orlando to Puerto Rico
The man packed 13 handguns, a M-16-type automatic weapon and eight pounds of marijuana in a suitcase.

Jeannette Rivera-Lyles, Pedro Ruz Gutierrez and Beth Kassab | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted March 6, 2007, 6:06 PM EST


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.

 

Sad but true. I remember the commuter I used to work for issued some of us SIDA badges. If I'd wanted to I could have taken a bazooka on board. The TSA couldn't find their own @sses with both hands and a map. Airport security, there's a contradiction for ya.

 

Are you telling me that you personally know and trust every ID wearing pilot out there and are willing to put your life on the line to say that this person has not infiltrated our super simple system and may or may not carry a weapon into your cockpit with the intent of causing harm to you or others.

I agree the system sucks and something needs done, but to think that flight crew should be able to skip screening all together is to simple.

 

Well with that logic if they are going to go all the way to infiltrate the system as a pilot and go through all of the steps necessary to get to the point of being a pilot, then they would probably just keep going and be a ffdo and then they don't even have to buy the weapon.

There is definetly something wrong with the system when I can go through one airport and bypass security with my SIDA badge and the next I have run through the screening process like the rest of the public, however all of the airport workers can bypass security. Do you think that it would be easier for a terrorist to get hired on as a airport worker or as a pilot? They could easily get hired on as an airport worker and pass weapons on to their Jihad buddys.

Somehow I am still perceived as a threat. The feds are afraid to tell the airports to do background checks on all of the airport workers and to make them pass through security because it would be to hard on the airports. Good grief the real reason is they would lose their workforce.

 

I totally agree with you it is a mess. It just wouldn't take much for a sleeper to have gained his ratings and time, get on with some budget express carrier and infiltrate the system or even cockpit. Sad truth!

 

The good news is that this sort of operation would require an educated terrorist, with travel experience in the west, and an ABSOLUTELY pristine background to get by the TSA/FBI/CIA. There are folks like this in the tango organizations, but being smarter than the average camel jock, they prefer to limit to their contributions to moral, financial, and logistics support...not full martydom.

Of the 9/11 terrorists, only a handful actually KNEW they were going to crash, and from I know of their flight training backgrounds (several trained at my FBO and with friend of mine) they would have have real difficulty getting any pilot rating, much less completing 121 training.

Not impossible, but too many hurdles to be an attractive option to al queda...they don't like to get caught in the act and fail(makes them look like asses to their constuents), they prefer to conduct operations that appear to have an excellent chance of success.