"Ex-ticket agents charged in Boston airport smuggling"

Friday, December 2, 2005

Ex-ticket agents charged in Boston airport smuggling

  
BOSTON (Reuters) - Three former American Airlines employees were charged
with smuggling money out of the United States by avoiding security checks at
Boston's Logan International Airport.

The U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, Michael Sullivan, announced the charges
on Friday and said the women, who worked as ticket agents at Logan used
their knowledge of the layout to slip past security screeners at one of
America's busiest airports for months.

Security at Boston's airport made headlines after several of the September
11, 2001 hijackers boarded airplanes there.

Authorities said the three ticket agents carried nearly $200,000 in cash to
the Dominican Republic last year, taking the money out on flights from
Boston.

It is a federal crime to transport more than $10,000 in cash in or out of
the United States without reporting it.

Authorities said the women knew the money they carried came from drug deals.

"The women evaded security procedures at Logan International Airport to
avoid scrutiny of the cash and currency reporting requirements, and
delivered the cash to another person who was waiting at the airport in the
Dominican Republic," officials said in a statement.

The U.S. attorney worked with the Department of Homeland Security on the
case and said the government would prosecute people who "compromise our
nation's security."

Homeland Security officials this week announced new measures for searching
passengers boarding planes to make such searches less predictable.


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