Pubdate: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 Source: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (FL) Page: One, Front Page Copyright: 1999 Sun-Sentinel Company Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/letters_editor.htm Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Forum: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/interact1.htm Author: Dana Calvo, and John Holland Note: Jose Dante Parra Herrera and Katherine Hutt Scott contributed to this report. DRUG TRAFFICKING RING BROKEN UP AT MIA MIAMI -- A baggage handler for American Airlines might earn less than $8 an hour, but he gets unlimited access throughout Miami International Airport, a privilege that enabled 30 of the company's employees to get in on what they thought was an international cocaine ring. Instead, they got caught in a federal sting, set up largely with "sham" cocaine, a gun and three hand grenades planted by undercover agents. On Wednesday 58 federal indictments were unsealed, the largest airport drug bust in the country's history, according to U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Scott. Forty-eight of the defendants, including two federal officers and a Broward Sheriff's Deputy, were arrested in a dawn sweep. "This is not a case of one or two rogues involved in one transaction over a month's period of time," Scott said. "This is a situation where we have charged about 30 employees over a two-year period involving 38 separate transactions. I think that speaks mouthfuls." The apparent lack of sophistication and small-time quality of the operation underscored what prosecutors called the key finding of their entire investigation: That a bunch of amateurs were able to traffic in cocaine and outwit one of the country's largest airlines and airports because no one was watching. "It became obvious early on that there were issues involving narcotics, but also regarding security," Scott said. "The agents and I believed we could basically put anything we wanted on those planes." American Airlines fired the accused employees on Wednesday. One phase of the investigation here began by dumb luck. It started with an unsatisfactory swig of watery coffee in April 1998, Scott said. A pilot on an American Airlines flight from Colombia complained that his coffee tasted strange and, worse, it was weak. "When they went back and investigated it they found there was heroin in the packages," Scott said. There was actually 15 pounds of heroin in 130 sealed coffee packets from Lufthansa Service Sky Chef. Airline and food service employees had been smuggling heroin for months, always through the coffee packets. In every case, a maintenance worker unhooked the water supply to the coffee machine, making flight attendants think the machine was broken. But one time the water was not disconnected and the tainted bags were used to make coffee for the pilot, said a senior federal prosecutor close to the investigation. "It was very fortuitous," the prosecutor said. Thirteen Lufthansa employees were snared in the sting, accused of lining panels of service food carts with cocaine. The employees started by stashing the drugs underneath the wheeled carts, but later discovered they could hide more by padding the sidewalls with flattened packages. Court papers show that over two years, more than 660 pounds of cocaine were flown in on flights from Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia. The drugs were transferred onto passenger flights bound for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and Cleveland. In a May 19 deal, Jose A. Rodriguez and Orlando Rodriguez, two uniformed American Airlines employees, met an undercover agent at the airport's Dolphin Garage. Authorities say the agent unloaded five kilograms each to the men, who put them in their American Airlines backpack. The men entered a secure area of the airport and changed into plainclothes. Then they took advantage of the company's "Employees Fly Free" policy for a trip to Baltimore, carrying the drugs. Court papers show the men sold the cocaine to a small group of men there. "The security procedures were breached, and the security measures at that airport are obviously insufficient to do the job," Scott said. American Airlines goes back five years into the criminal history of prospective employees, and 10 years into the employment history, said company spokeswoman Marta Pantin. Kathleen Berger, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta, said employees who have access to secure areas, like ramps and cargo areas, must submit to fingerprint clearance by the FBI. But once the individuals get that clearance, they can come and go freely through secure areas. "It would be unpractical given the number of employees who work at the ramps," Berger said, pointing out that 40,000 individuals work at the airport. The screening process is not always effective, said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant. Prospective employees can easily doctor their employment history, because companies do not release much information on past employees. "The money involved in drug peddling is so big, it's such an incentive, how are you going to tell a $20-an-hour baggage handler not to do it?" Boyd said. American Airlines handlers make from $7.02 to $19.96 an hour. "Someone can take a bag of cocaine, plop it in the side of a baggage compartment or under the sink in the bathroom and make easy money," Boyd said. "There's a million places you can hide things on an airplane." But most of the contraband on American Airline's passenger flights was not real. It was "sham" powder, heroin and marijuana, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Taylor. That provoked questions of legal entrapment. Would the baggage handlers have shipped drugs had the undercover agents not approached them? Scott said yes. "What we tried to do is take what people have suspected for a long time and to document it through these various scenarios so there would be proof positive," he said. "We literally took an undercover source out to that airport at American and Sky Chef, and we said, 'We're open for business,' and they came. And they kept coming." The best example of someone who volunteered to ship not only drugs but weapons was Victor Montalvo of Miami, prosecutors said. He repeatedly approached a fellow employee, who was also a federal informant, offering to help them smuggle cocaine through security for $500 a trip. Finally, agents let him join the conspiracy, with one caveat: Montalvo would also have to help smuggle an automatic handgun and three M-67 hand grenades on to an American Airlines plane full of 250 passengers. Montalvo did not hesitate, according to an arrest affidavit, but he demanded a $7,000 fee. He didn't know agents had already disengaged the grenandes. Montalvo and the other defendants -- most wearing tee shirts and sneakers, all chained at the wrist -- arrived at the federal courthouse around 3 p.m. Wednesday. Children in strollers and their teary-eyed mothers peered around agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs. The relatives waved as the defendants, overwhelmingly male, were brought in a half-dozen at a time. A woman in her 50s was negotiating with a lawyer when her son was led past to the courtroom. "I love you John," she blurted out and began crying. Nearly all of the defendants were held without bond pending pretrial detention, scheduled for today and Friday."Can you imagine loading up your family and kids and heading to Disney World on an American Airlines plane," said Patricia Galupo, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "And when you go to put your bag in the overhead your competing for space with a bag loaded with a handgun and three hand grenades? That's what this case is about." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake