While increasing digitalization and screening are now an integral part of every step of the airport experience, this has not stopped some criminals from trying to smuggle drugs and weapons in unconventional ways.
Some incidents highlighted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) include several types of drugs sewn inside a hair scrunchie confiscated at Boise International Airport and 17 bullets "artfully concealed inside the otherwise clean disposable baby diaper" at New York's LaGuardia.
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As first reported by local news outlet Click4 Detroit, the Department of Homeland Security is currently investigating a Michigan man who was caught trying to move cocaine bricks weighing more than 33 pounds through Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DFW).
Here is how a last-minute flight tipped off authorities about potential drug smuggling
On June 6, Woodrow Campbell booked a Delta Air Lines (DAL) flight from Los Angeles to his home city of Saginaw that was scheduled to take off less than 24 hours later on June 7. According to the criminal complaint airport authorities filed on June 8, Campbell had several records of checking suitcases on flights and then leaving them behind at the airport. In May 2023, Campbell left a bag containing 10 pounds of cocaine in it at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (his criminal record has a misdemeanor charge but no felony charges.)
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Between this history and the last-minute nature of the flight (this can set off airport alarm bells as drug smugglers often book flights at the last minute to not have a long digital record of where they're going), a judge ordered all three of the bags he was transporting offloaded and checked during a layover at Wayne County Airport. Two of the bags arrived on an earlier flight and had also already been identified by sniffer dogs as containing drugs by the time the third bag arrived at 2:15 p.m.
'See whether or not they have the evidence necessary to support the charges'
The search then turned up over 33 pounds of cocaine spread across the three bags — each brick was wrapped in bulky male clothing that, according to the police report, were far too large for Campbell's frame. Campbell was arrested without incident and taken into Wayne County Airport Authority police headquarters amid a pending investigation. He is currently detained on an unsecured bond of $10,000.
The initial investigation shows that there is "probable cause" to believe that Campbell was transporting cocaine with the intent to distribute it. An investigation published earlier this month by ABC7 found that LAX International Airport has reason to be dubbed the drug-smuggling hub of the world amid rising rates of narcotics smuggled into and spread through the rest of the U.S. from Mexican and South American cartels through its doors.
"It's really premature for me to give you my assessment of the case other than at this particular point, he's pled not guilty, and that we're going to traverse through process to see whether or not they have the evidence necessary to support the charges levied against him," Adam Gregory Clements, the attorney who is representing Campbell in the case, told Detroit News.
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