Watch your bags, wallets at airports

Katie Fairbank

Thursday, Aug. 5, 1999 | 11:24 a.m.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- High-tech security abounds at airports, but nothing can separate a passenger from his property quicker than a short attention span.

"Most people that are victims -- God love 'em -- weren't paying attention. They left their suitcases behind while going to the bathroom or they asked someone else to watch their baggage, or they left jewelry behind while they were washing their hands," said Avry Dodson, who as director of the Department of Public Safety oversees Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

"People are leaving valuables in plain view," said Benjamin DeCosta, general manager of Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport.

Most airport security is focused on major breaches, such as terrorism. The amount of crime at the nation's airports is not monitored by any federal agencies unless it has a special relation to aviation safety.

"Security is through the Federal Aviation Administration, but that's oriented only to terrorism and contraband goods that threaten flights," said Bill Mosley, a spokesman with the Department of Transportation.

The airlines do report mishandled baggage, which could be stolen, but otherwise "street" crime is considered a local issue and not monitored on a national level, he said.

Instead, law enforcement concentrates on the trends it finds in its own back yard.

At Hartsfield, the world's busiest airport with about 73.5 million passengers annually, larceny is the crime of the year. According to police statistics compiled by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, theft has climbed 26 percent for the first four months this year.

Car thefts also have gone up, doubling from 107 in 1997 to 215 last year.

A 9 percent increase in passenger volume could be partly to blame for the rising thefts, but DeCosta said he's investigating whether a theft ring is canvassing the airport.

At Dallas-Fort Worth, missing vehicles are the bigger problem.

"In the last year we had 180 vehicles stolen from rental agencies," Dodson said. "These are not random thefts. Most of these are employee related. We recover over 80 percent of the rental cars that are stolen."

Airline employees also have sometimes been the issue when theft occurs.

In April at D-FW 10 baggage handlers were arrested for stealing property from about 500 bags bound for flights on American Trans Air, British Airways, Korean Airlines and Lufthansa.

In 1998 a group of baggage handlers at American Airlines in Miami were arrested after a 19-member special security team did a sting operation. The 44 baggage handlers were accused of pilfering thousands of pieces of jewelry, electronic equipment, cameras and cash from inside suitcases as planes arrived and departed.

But those aren't the majority of theft cases; much of the stealing is done right in front of the passenger.

Earlier this year at D-FW a man was charged with habitually stealing those black-wheeled bags that look similar to dozens of others on the baggage carousel.

His modus operandi was to steal the common-looking bags and plead ignorance if stopped by the rightful owner.

"The guy had been making a living out here," Dodson said. "He'd been stopped by people but always bluffed his way through."

He pirated about $1 million of loot to sell at flea markets and a couple of warehouses full of stuff before he was caught.

Airports in New York have a much bigger problem with pickpockets than many other cities and police have conducted several sting operations to catch regular thieves, according to Bill Cahill, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, which handled 72.5 million passengers last year, seems to have the most trouble in its bathrooms.

Thefts in airport restrooms have risen 99 percent at O'Hare as most property crimes decreased.

One thing that is rare at airports is violent crime.

"Virtually never," Cahill said.

And even though everyone hears about luggage being stolen, it's actually statistically unlikely that a passenger will become a crime victim at any U.S. airport, considering the number of passengers and the number of nonpassengers traveling through the airports on any given day.

"Theft is infinitesimal. Obviously if it's your bag it's more important," Dodson said. "But in essence what this boils down to is airports are pretty dad-gum safe places to be."