Pubdate: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2003 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Robert F. Worth, New York Times N.Y. AIRPORT WORKERS CHARGED IN DRUG STING NEW YORK - Federal agents Tuesday arrested 20 airport baggage and cargo handlers and charged them with running a decadelong drug-smuggling operation that brought hundreds of pounds of cocaine and marijuana a year through Kennedy International Airport under the noses of customs officials. The arrests unveiled a criminal conspiracy of stunning duration, prosecutors said, in which the baggage handlers moved drug shipments worth tens of millions of dollars through the airport with virtual impunity. The smuggling operation also showed what federal officials called a vulnerability in the nation's airline-security system. Unlike baggage screeners, who became federal employees subject to more stringent federal regulations in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, baggage and cargo handlers are often employed by private contractors working for airlines. ``A network of corrupt airport employees, motivated by greed, might just as well have been collaborating with terrorists as with drug smugglers,'' Michael Garcia, the acting assistant secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Tuesday at a news conference to announce the arrests. The arrests concluded a 14-month investigation during which federal agents seized more than 400 kilograms of cocaine and hundreds of pounds of marijuana arriving at Kennedy on international flights, almost all of them from Guyana and Jamaica, officials said. One of the shipments, a 185-kilogram package of cocaine worth $23 million found in the cargo section of a passenger flight in September, is the largest ever intercepted at Kennedy, officials said. The baggage handlers and their supervisors, who had unrestricted access to the tarmac and airplanes, worked together to unload the drug shipments, prosecutors said. They would then move them to safe areas for pickup and distribution, carefully avoiding surveillance cameras and all forms of border inspection and security, prosecutors said. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin