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Watch Your Bags: TSA Employees Admit Stealing

Neal Colgrass for Newser
Posted on Oct 1, 2012

This post originally appeared on Newser:

A former TSA screener has advice for America’s travelers: Watch your bags. Pythias Brown, who just served three years for stealing from people’s luggage, says such thieving is typical.

“It was so easy,” he tells the Daily News. “One day I walked out of there with the video game, the Nintendo Wii. I walked right out of the checkpoint with the Nintendo Wii in my hand.” What’s more, he says, TSA agents brashly steal from bags while travelers go through screenings.

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The TSA says it has fired almost 400 officers for thieving since 2003, but according to Brown, that could be a drop in the ocean—because robbery “was very commonplace. Very.”

TSA agents who steal have ways of justifying it, too, like “they aren’t paying me, they’re treating me wrong.” Brown has confessed to taking more than $800,000 in electronics, clothing, and cash during his four years working at Newark’s international airport.

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  • LeAnne

     The TSA is a completely corrupt and ineffective organization that does not improve airline safety.  People trust them under the guise that they are helping prevent a terrorist attack, but they have wasted billions of dollars and not successfully identified one terrorist.  Instead, they have sexually assaulted people and children, stolen from them, and irradiated them unnecessarily. 

    This is only the one tiny snapshot of how horrible the TSA has been since inception.  Please do your research and stand up for yourself when you travel.

  • AD

    I have had my Tumi TSA-approved luggage stolen off my suitcase not once, not twice, but THREE times by TSA. My luggage was not searched (they leave a notice if they do that), just the lock removed and stolen for no reason. I hate TSA employees.

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  • nelsyh

    This has been going on for long time,on may 26 2010 we traveled to Puerto Rico in continental airlines and by mistake my jewelry black bag ended in the checked suitcase,guest what? they opened the suitcase, left no note and emptied the jewelry pouch of all my gold items with a value of over 22,000.00 there was also a huge amount of fake jewelry there also but they left it untouched, they have a way if knowing the good from the bad,I opened a case but the ciurt dismissed it