Gang members working at JFK

Gang members used their jobs as baggage handlers at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport to avoid inspection of mail bags filled with cocaine and transported on commercial planes from South America, police said on Thursday.
City officials announced that detectives arrested 13 people on February 20. They were part of a drug trafficking and distribution ring believed to have sold more than 1,300 pounds (600 kg) of cocaine a year in New York with a street value of USD$75 million.
The case is the latest in a series of disrupted drug operations at JFK airport run by baggage handlers who diverted narcotics from security and border inspection procedures that authorities say have been tightened up since the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.
Last November, 23 mostly airport employees in the New York area were arrested on charges of conspiracy to smuggle tens of millions of dollars of cocaine and marijuana into the country on international cargo and passenger flights.
In the case announced on Thursday, police officers seized USD$400,000, five vehicles, three guns and 110 pounds (50 kg) of cocaine in a series of raids, police and prosecutors said.
In a house where a city corrections officer and her common law husband were arrested, police found a cache of cocaine and a loaded .45 caliber hand gun on the stereo while two children under 12 years old played nearby.
“To the detectives’ amazement, most of the drugs seized in the raid were barely hidden,” police commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. “For example, several kilos of cocaine sat inside of a gym bag in plain sight.”
He said the cocaine was bought in Guyana in South America and sent to New York on commercial airliners. The members of the gang who worked as baggage handlers circumvented inspection of mail bags containing the cocaine.
Profits from the gang’s cocaine sales were returned to Guyana where other gang members laundered the cash.
Those arrested face charges including drug conspiracy, gun and drug possession and money laundering, officials said. They face up to 25 years’ imprisonment if found guilty.