According to a Fox report (picked up by BoingBoing), data from TSA records suggests that up to $31 million worth of goodies went missing from travel bags in the past three years alone.
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Most of these valuables seem to have been “lifted” from checked bags that had to be left unlocked, in accordance with the TSA’s “no locks” policy. According to a baggage handler in Kansas City, such pilfering is something of an open secret among baggage handlers. Nobody comes right out to confess they took anything, but there are always rumors of someone finding goodies in the bags ”¦ and keeping them.
Most of the pilfering is suspected to happen when the bags are all shifted to luggage holding areas. There is just one person who’s required to move the bags to the carts to be loaded on different flights. The way they evade any blame is by conveniently making sure that the bag – after it has been properly “examined” – was put on the wrong flight to a different city. This ensures that the location of the crime can’t be traced.
It makes you wonder who’s the beneficiary of all this high flying security we have going — the passengers or the baggage handlers.