$31 Million In Valuables Missing From Luggage

A Fox News affiliate in Kansas City has gained access to a Transportation Security Administration database which reveals that $31 million worth of valuables has gone missing from luggage at American airports over the past three years. Due to heightened security theft of luggage from baggage carousels is down dramatically in recent years, but total luggage theft is up. It is believed that the majority of stolen items are being taken by baggage handlers employed by the airlines and even by TSA workers. One former baggage handler in Kansas City said that the when luggage is in the baggage hold area waiting to be loaded onto the plane it's particularly susceptible to theft. "You will have one person down there and all they are doing is transferring bags to different carts. It only takes one person. So you would just be in a room by yourself." The Kansas City reporters tell us that the airports with the worst record luggage security include LAX, with over 2,300 complaints, Newark, Miami, JFK, and Seattle.

As Cory Doctorow points out in his Boing Boing post, the stolen goods were "pilfered in transit after the TSA inaugurated its no-locks policy on checked bags."

Image courtesy proidee.co.uk