TSA agents, cops arrested in drug trafficking case

TSA agents, cops arrested in drug trafficking case

www.msnbc.msn.com

Three TSA agents and at least two police officers have been arrested, accused of being involved in a massive oxycodone trafficking operation between Connecticut, New York and Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

(visit the link for the full news article)

three TSA officers, a Westchester County police officer and a Florida State Trooper all running drugs and cash.

I wonder where they'll trace the drugs back to, assuming there is an investigation.

The U.S. Attorney, DEA agents, and the chief of police will be holding a news conference sometime this afternoon.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Oaktree


The standards for hiring TSA folk is notoriously low. I would NEVER work airport security until it was privatized. Actual employers have higher standards than todays government.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Right!
I was about to post about the regularity of TSA having issues regarding their agents and the law.

They have a total of 45000 security officers, and another 1000 inspectors, but they sure are in the news frequently.

makes me feel safe with the honest tsa in charge, police to they dont break laws right

reply to post by thegoods724


What really bothers me is thinking of the number of people who have had their lives ruined by these very same officers, just doing their job.

I blame the confidence game known as the Department of Homeland Security... who foisted the TSA on us like some twisted punishment for being "free."

There are bad people in the world - they are everywhere in every field. this time we get to hear about some cops using their connections and authority to facilitate drug trafficking... tomorrow it will be about priests using their clerical status to get close to vulnerable children, next week it will be about politicians racketeering and using insider trading tactics to become multi-millionaires... next month it will be about gigantic corporations working together to make sure we pay obscene fees and prices for the necessities of life... next year it will be about national governments making it illegal to think, speak, or gather together.

This is small potatoes in the grand scale of things.

It would be nice if they actually figured out who is making the Oxycontin.... let alone selling it to the traffickers... but I bet that wont be forthcoming....

reply to post by Oaktree


TSA - The Side Action

Florida is the OC "pill"grimage site for many people form from other states. "Pain clinics" which take only cash and dole out drugs like candy are pretty rampant from what I've seen and heard. Addicts and dealers pick up drugs there and cross state lines and consume or sell them on the street. IMO the drug compaines are responsible for all of this. Some better digger than I might be able to prove this, but I'm starting to think that they (drug corporations) might be advocating and lobbying certain states to have more lax prescription guidelines, and providing the money to people willing and able to help spread this addictive garbage, becuse in the end, if they're not stolen pills, they were purchased from the people w/ the patent and manufacturing capabilities

What irks me is this will get little or no main stream coverage. The few times I watch the local news/cnn they always report when people get arrested for drugs, or rape, ect.. but since these are cops/tsa agents it will be ignored.

You can always catch the goons but never the source..

reply to post by Oaktree


The will undoubtedly have originated in Florida doctors offices and have been heading to places like West Virginia and Kentucky. Pain pills are an epidemic and Appalachia right now.

reply to post by MoebabFlundershuntz


Yeah they have pain clinics down there that give them to anyone.
I know a guy that used to go, and he said if you went down and didn't have an mri/xray of your back when you visited the dr they would write an order for one and there would be a place just around the block you could get one and then come back with it the same or next day and get your pain medicine.
And the prescriptions they write are insane. We are talking the same meds they give terminal patients and people with degenerative diseases give to people with nothing wrong and more than you could imagine. They even prescribe xanax to the same people even though the drugs together in high doses can kill. The doctors have no illusion about what they are doing.

Very disturbing news from the news conference this afternoon.

The TSA agents accepted gift cards or cash bribes and, in exchange, helped him travel through airport security with large amounts of cash and oxycodone pills.
Two of the TSA agents arrested in the investigation, Christopher Allen, 45, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and John Best, 30, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., worked at the West Palm Beach International Airport. Brigitte Jones, 48, of the Bronx, N.Y., worked at Westchester County Airport.

Jones allegedly told the trafficker how to smuggle a gun through airport security, and made sure other TSA agents would not discover his stash of painkillers. The trafficker gave Jones $300 to $600 in cash or gift cards each trip, the complaint states.

"`I'll say my friend's coming over and no matter what happens they're just going to let you go through,' " Jones allegedly told the trafficker, according to a recorded conversation detailed in the complaint.

stamfordadvocate

So they would should how to smuggle a gun for $300.
Crazy!

Don't worry, we'll just say you're my friend and nobody will ask any questions.
Quite the professionals.

reply to post by Oaktree


keep the TSA stuff coming! Big Props! But I don't know if you're saying the TSA is corrupt on an invidual level or all together.
I mean the actions of some indiviuals within an organization don't prove to me that the entire thing is corrupt...
I'm starting to form a theory...assuming TSA's rotten from the top down, we have to follow the money. If they can be bought, who is buying them? Who is letting them be bought?

At one point in late 2010 or early 2011, the trafficker was stopped at the airport with $100,000 on him, according to a federal criminal complaint; Brady then ordered other TSA officers to stop their investigation of the trafficker.

stamford advocate

If someone orders another to stop the investigation of someone carrying $100,000 cash, shouldn't that throw up a flag right away?

reply to post by Oaktree


hey i majorly edited my last post, sorry...still it seems more like individual corruption and lack or oversight.

sooo, still no word about Whom the Officers arrested were ... anyone else find this disturbing??
2 articles, a press conference and nearly 12hrs later but no indication of who the 'masters' of the plan were.

TSA employees are notoriously creepy and less than trustworthy but the officers involved should be being hung out to dry right about now but here we are ... the public at large ... expected to trust them unconditionally.

Hopefully now, most citizens and officers alike might understand why the public will never trust the 'man in uniform' again. after all, he/she is just a human who is apparently making bigger mistakes than most.

talk about 'welfare cheats' ... no drug Use and no poor parent can hold a candle to these piss poor excuses for human beings ... they all had a job paid for by you and me but no, that just wasn't good enough, was it???
yeah sure, take the food away from the drug users but by all means, protect the identity of the pushers. Isn't that just typical.

Oh man, after getting warned and having to re-read the T and C's, here's the meat of what i really was trying to say without advocating anything illicit: ( which was NOT my intent anyway, but i still love ATS and my experience was about working with recovering addicts and my 'stupid kid days', not glorifying drug use at all)
I think, no i know for a fact, that doctors over-prescribe addictive medicine for money and gifts, especially in Florida. But I'm wonering if the Big Pharms that make this garbage aren't connected to it flooding it into illegal markets in order to sell more pills and hook more poeple onto it. More and more people are addicted to opiates, and they turn to street drugs when it's not availible. It would boost their profits to pay people in the TSA to help spread it across america's black markets since its a manufactured pill, not a street drug. "Gift cards" reeks of Corporate. Think about it.