Weapon smuggling
Guns 'routinely' smuggled as hand luggage aboard US
airliners
New
York prosecutor has announced five arrests in a scheme in which guns - even an
AK-47 rifle - were taken onto passenger jets for years in carry-on luggage
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A Delta jet lands near
a Delta hangar Photo: AP
By AFP
10:48PM GMT 23 Dec
2014
Five Americans have
been charged in connection with a plot to sell 153 guns and traffick them into
New York in carry-on bags on 17 commercial flights.
The devastating lapse
of airline security put hundreds of travelers at risk and was allegedly aided
by a Delta Airlines agent in Atlanta, who carried the weapons past security
checks.
Former Delta employee
Mark Henry, 45, carried bags full of guns and ammunition on 17 flights from
Atlanta to New York from May to December, said the Brooklyn district attorney's
office.
He and three other
defendants have been charged in a 591-count indictment in Brooklyn that
includes first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, which is punishable by
up to 25 years.
A fifth man, Delta
ramp agent Eugene Harvey, 31, was arrested in Georgia and arraigned in court on
Monday, they added.
Chief culprit Henry
was denied bail for his alleged role in the conspiracy to sell assault weapons,
9mm handguns and Glock pistols to an undercover NYPD detective in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors say Henry
bought 10-20 guns at a time, mostly through a website, picked them up from
sellers in Georgia and then flew to New York with the guns stashed in his
luggage.
He allegedly boarded
the two-hour flights at nominal cost by using his mother's privileges as a
retired Delta employee.
Henry was himself a
former Delta employee from 2007 to 2010.
He allegedly dodged
airport security lines in Atlanta by paying cash to Harvey to carry the bags of
guns past mandatory passenger checks and hand them over before boarding for New
York.
Henry was arrested on
December 10, when US prosecutors say 16 firearms, ammunition and magazines were
recovered from a backpack inside his Brooklyn home after arriving from Atlanta
that morning.
Prosecutors said he
was assisted by Ernest Leneau, 54, Adrian Alleyne, 24 and Grayling Smith, 51.
All have appeared in court apart from Smith, who is still in Georgia.
District attorney Ken
Thompson warned the guns could have been used to shoot and kill residents and
police officers in Brooklyn.
"In this age of
terrorism, it is simply unthinkable that anyone would breach the security of
our nation's airports to smuggle guns and ammunition, including assault
weapons, on commercial airliners and jeopardize countless lives all to make money,"
said Thompson.
Two police officers
were shot dead in broad daylight in Brooklyn on Saturday by a disturbed
28-year-old whom officers said had a clear anti-police bias and who earlier
shot his ex-girlfriend.
New York Police
Commissioner Bill Bratton said the airline plot had been grounded. "These
guns are now permanently out of commission," he said.
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