“A TSA agent caught stealing iPads and numerous other electronic devices was arrested this week following a sting operation at New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport,” Killian Bell reports for Cult of Mac. “Sean Henry, 32, joins the growing list of TSA workers who have been accused of stealing from passengers as they pass through airport checkpoints across the United States.”
“Henry’s arrest follows an ABC News investigation carried out back in September, which revealed that 381 TSA officers had been fired for theft since 2003,” Bell reports. “Henry will be the latest, after Transportation Security Administration spokesman David Castelveter confirmed that the TSA has ‘taken the steps to begin processing [Henry] for termination.'”
Bell reports, “Apple’s iOS devices — the iPad, in particular — appear to be a popular target for some TSA agents, who believe it’s okay to take passengers’ belongings home with them. Unfortunately for them, they’re also the easiest to track… Officers used the Find My iPad feature to track the two devices that had been intentionally left behind, and they found them with Henry as they left JFK on the airport’s AirTrain system. And that’s not all Henry was carrying. In Henry’s backpack, investigators found a MacBook Pro, a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones — still boxed, an iPad mini, an iPod, and an iPhone. A subsequent search of his home also uncovered a stolen MacBook. Needless to say Henry was charged with grand larceny and possession of stolen property.”
Read more in the full article here.
The ABC News report is here.
Related article:
ABC News tracks missing iPad to Florida home of TSA officer – September 28, 2012
How are they taking them? Right off the conveyor belt while you stand there?
One way is by opening your checked baggage. Never check anything valuable. Learned that the hard way a few years ago when they stole my video camera, but kindly left a calling card (a notice informing me my bag had been opened and searched by the TSA).
Another way, perhaps more to the point for this article, is to grab anything the traveler has forgotten at a security checkpoint.
It might be when the powers that be ie TSA scum demand everyone STOP and you and everyone comply to this illegal command thus swelling the heads of these maggots! So while you shaking in your boots ‘cuz God help you if you move, for fear the TSA thugs will haul your carcass to their special little room for correction training! That’s when they rob you I bet!
Hard to say.
The most improbable phrase above, though is, the TSA has ‘taken the steps to begin processing [Henry] for termination.’ Processing for termination? Can’t you just call him into your office, hand him a paycheck and say, “You’re fired!” a la Donald Trump?
Nope. Because they ate federal employees it takes an act of congress to remove them. Okay a lot of paperwork and time at least.
Would like to say i am surprised by this, but I am not.
THe house the guy in Orlando lives in seems nice, considering how “low paid’ they are supposed to be.
yeah, i don’t drop anything into those bins. all goes into front pockets of the carry on. and the iPad? your not even required to pull that one out of your baggage.
more gangsters.
The solution seems to be to give every single TSA employee an Obamaphone. That way they’ll use the Obamaphone for calls and won’t feel tempted to steal an iPhone or iPad.
TSA was Bush’s work.
Nice try.
Not really.
Blame Bush?
No!
Blame the TSA criminals and weak government oversight.
Dumb
The Obamaphone – brought to you by the Bush administration
4 and 1 months later, still blame game. America is doomed.
Indeed, 3 years and 11 months later, the blame game continues to flourish. America may be doomed, but not for the reasons that you believe.
Please keep in mind, BLN started this particular rant. You just commented on the part that bothered you personally while seeming to accept the “blame game” content that fits with your paradigm.
Apparently sexually abusing passengers isn’t sufficient anymore. Now TSA is expanding their expertise into robbery.
Your tax dollars at work.
This shouldn’t shock anyone. The idea that somehow Doctors or Government workers are noble is a big fat false ideology. We are all timber, but we are all crooked timber – the profession makes no difference.
Okay, so there is ONE advantage to bringing an Android device or Surface tablet to the airport.
No one want’s to steel them.
I thought they were plastic.
They are the batteries are not. Thats how they detect most electronic devices it from their batteries.
And we are relying on these people to assure that no wackos get on airplanes? Who runs security checks on them? 381 arrests in nine years? Well, I guess if you make decisions based on averages, not too bad. But if GM had that many failures of hood latches, they’d have to recall millions of cars. This makes no sense and it is beyond concerning in my estimation. Oh wait, there is the personal responsibility aspect. If passengers would just not be so absent minded and leave the temptations right there, these poor stiffs would not be taking them home for safe keeping. Wait, wait — some defense lawyer I am sure we come up with a good neighbor defense. The premise being that the victimized TSA officers were only taking these items home for safe keeping until the rightful owner claimed them.
Considering that the TSA’s role is for essentially ‘national security’, charging those individuals who **breach that trust** with treason would claim down on things REAL fast.
And since the penalty for treason includes death by firing squad, it wouldn’t take too many capital punishment “examples” to utterly put a stop to ALL airline baggage theft.
Yes, this sounds severe, but when we remember that the duty that they’re charged with is to prevent terrorists from getting ahold of airplanes to use as weapons of mass destruction, it really isn’t.
-hh
What would be the safest way to pass a new iphone 5 in the box through the checkpoint? In a purse or in the bottom of a carry on bag?
There’s a lot of confusion and baskets at the security checkpoint, people do leave their stuff behind.
I once too left my laptop which has to be taken out of bag, I realized that my bag was pretty light when I was already on the plain, I ran back to the checkpoint and recovered my laptop which was already secured in the TAS’s desk.
The TSA says they “have a zero tolerance policy for steeling from passengers.”
Really? They actually have a policy stating that their security officers shouldn’t steel from passengers?!?!?
Are there security agencies that have a one-time forgiveness policy for steeling?
That’ll be ‘steal’, then…
Millions of pieces of luggage make it through untouched each day, but it’s still legitimate news when something is stolen. That usually isn’t the first time the guy has taken something.
And when it does happen, it makes you think TSA means Took Somebody’s Apple.
The TSA is a criminal organization. Disband it and start over.
I used to work for the State of New York. Sometimes it does feel like you’re being PUNISHED for working for the government.
But that doesn’t equate to giving up your personal integrity and self-respect for the sake of some abstract need for revenge.
You should be punished. You are leeching off taxpayers, meddling in our affairs, and lording it over your betters, the poor slobs forced to pay your salary.
We need to abolish the TSA and ALL govt bureaucracies — actually, all govt. What do we need it for? Taxing us? Making war? Believe me, we can all do w/o those curses.
HAHAHAHAHA! Great imitation of a raving lunatic. Bravo!
Part of my work for NYS over the course of 3 years was to study the effects of the Seneca Army Depot’s radiation spillage on the lake trout of both Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. It was producing cancerous tumors that eventually killed the fish.
So please Bea, come to New York and drink the water contaminated with nuclear waste. By no means pay anyone to study such trivial things.
The Excuse:
It used to be ‘The devil made me do it!’ Possessed by satan.
Now we hear:
“It’s like an addiction”
“Just playing in with the rest of them of ‘I don’t care'”
“They ain’t treating us right”
“They’re not paying us right”
Therefore it’s OK to steal stuff. 😯
It comes down to personal choices and personal responsibility. If those concepts are beyond your comprehension, you don’t qualify as an adult. How did THAT happen?
Unfortunately there is no qualifying test when you turn 21 that allows you to become an adult.
BTW, Derek, nice new avatar. Getting into the Christmas spirit, I see. =)
Nature says we’re an ‘adult’ when we can conceive babies. But nature is assuming mummy and duddy of the parents are there to help. That’s not our culture today, typically.
Brain adulthood is another matter entirely, not dictated by nature.
Avatar: I am making fun of the holidays this year. I figured a santa-bunny made sense and Bugs was into it.
…”Millions of pieces of luggage make it through untouched each day, …”
There are thousands of flights out there each day that take off and land safely, so it is news when an aircraft crashes. However, if there were hundreds of crashes in less than ten years, this would be a serious problem requiring a thorough re-engineering of the entire industry.
Stealing a device that was left behind at an X-ray machine is easily preventable (just remember to pick up the stuff you put in there). My biggest problem is with things that disappear after a checked-in luggage inspection. This takes place behind the scenes, and there is absolutely NO WAY anyone can prove exactly what was in the bag before inspection and what went missing when the bag is next re-claimed by the passenger, thousands of miles away, at another airport. Unless TSA carefully videotapes every inspection process, and unless they have at least TWO people doing the inspection (and keep randomly re-assigning those pairs, so no two people work together on more than just a few pieces of luggage), I’d like someone to explain how would anyone be able to legally claim and prove that items went missing (on the one side), or that nothing was taken in the process of inspection (on the other side).
My MD had his MacBook Pro stolen by the security guards at a German airport last year. His flight gate was changed last minute to another gate far away, and they had to go out of security and back into security. It was during this second security check that his laptop went missing because everyone was being rushed through to make the flight.
Initially the security company claimed the MacBook was not in the airport and the cameras at the gate picked nothing up. 2 days later I logged into Find My Mac and, lo and behold, his MacBook Pro appeared, at the airport.
A few screenshots, and a very angry phone call to the head of security at the airport and amazingly the MacBook Pro was found and returned.
I suppose the moral of this story is there are scumbags in all walks of life, even the cretins who are supposed to be maintaining security.
“…Transportation Security Administration spokesman David Castelveter confirmed that the TSA has ‘taken the steps to begin processing [Henry] for termination.”
Take steps… to BEGIN process???
WTF! And some people wonder why many citizens don’t trust the government??
How about this, instead.
His supervisor walks up to him as soon as his thievery is discovered, says “You’re fired”, then escorts him (in cuffs) from the airport in full view of everyone entering and leaving the terminal, and hands him over to police waiting at the door.
Abolish the Bush Created Dept. of Homeland Security which is a vast, well-funded fraud.
So both sets of morons thought government program was the solution to a problem. Look at TSA now. Look at Obamacare in 2025, 10 years after it has been implemented. Now the Democrats and ONLY the Democrats voted for and signed by Obama into law this Health Care mess. They own it. Let see the posts when an Obamacare healthcare provider steals your kidney to sell to get money for said iPad!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/wang-shangkun-kidney-ipad_n_1764335.html
Ha Ha Ha! What a douche! He was gonna let his wife take the rap for the whole thing!!!! Unbelievable!