Airline employee arrested for smuggling drugs, guns to Puerto Rico

By Jeannette Rivera-Lyles, Pedro Ruz Gutierrez and Beth Kassab
The Orlando Sentinel
(MCT)
ORLANDO, Fla. - 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 Munoz, 22, of Kissimmee, Fla., 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 Munoz Marin International Airport, but it's possible that Munoz'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, Munoz used his Comair Airlines identification card to sneak the weapons on board.
Munoz 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 Munoz he had smuggled guns and drugs to Puerto Rico before. He then offered Munoz 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, Munoz 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, Munoz 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 Munoz 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."
Munoz, 22, has been a Comair employee for three years and worked at the Orlando International Airport, said Kate Marx, a spokeswoman for the airline.
Munoz, 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 Munoz'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.

 

its only a matter of time before terrorists try this

 

This is the last thing that ANY of us needs...not just the Comair folks. Think of how well we as airline employees are received by the TSA. There's definately a fine line of employee "perks" ( bypassing security, and shorter lines, etc...) and security of the whole system. How much longer is the current system going to last with news like this. It's because of threats from London (I believe) a few months ago, that we now have random employee searches. What's next?!?!

 

You saying "This is the last thing Comair needs" is like if I said "This is the last thing the Puerto Ricans need." Absolutely ridiculous. You and the rest of the doomsdayers on this thing (which is about 98% of you) can take a flying leap!!!

 

TSA "Thousands Standing Around"

Its amazing.......most of the pilots are educated responsible individuals.........whom get harassed by the TSA, yet this uneducated trash (This particular guy, not rampers /agents in general)doesn't need to go through TSA. what a joke

 

I'm amazed that they had to actually smuggle drugs OUT of the continental US.

 

I bet they will start taking away all SIDA badges. They already started in Seattle for all pilots..

 

its amazing they even screen pilots, all we need is our hands.................................smoke and mirrors my friends

 

GOD IS GREAT!!!!!!! Egypt Air flight 990

http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?e...22X00388&key=1

At 0148:30, about 11 seconds after the captain left the cockpit, the CVR recorded an unintelligible comment.10 Ten seconds later (about 0148:40), the relief first officer stated quietly, "I rely on God."11 There were no sounds or events recorded by the flight recorders that would indicate that an airplane anomaly or other unusual circumstance preceded the relief first officer's statement, "I rely on God."

 

I dont think you should bash a rampers education. Some people just got different circumstances, doesn't make us better cause we got three or 4 stripes.. That could have eaily be done by a pilot too