Flight attendants use security privileges to smuggle millions in drug money out of US: federal prosecutors
Federal agents hauled a flight attendant out of New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport as they broke up an international money laundering ring that prosecutors allege smuggled $8 million in drug-related proceeds out of the U.S. by taking advantage of flight crews' easy airport access.
Four airline employees, three from New York and another from New Jersey, are accused of taking a cut of each shipment as they snuck it through special employee-access lanes at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints and onto flights bound for the Dominican Republic.
The suspects all had special clearance with the TSA under the Known Crewmember Program, or KCM. Airline employees with KCM status have a separate, expedited security lane and face less scrutiny, according to federal prosecutors.
"In effect, given these loosened security procedures, KCM privileges allow flight attendants to bypass airport security with large quantities of cash without that cash being seized," the federal criminal complaint reads.
Charlie Hernandez, 42; Sarah Valerio Pujols, 42; Emmanuel Torres, 34; and Jarol Fabio 35, each face federal felony charges of operating an unlicensed money transmission business and violating airport security requirements.
"As alleged, the defendants knowingly smuggled large amounts of illicit money linked to the sale of narcotics, to include fentanyl, and took advantage of airport security checkpoints by using their trusted positions as flight attendants," Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Ivan Arvelo said Wednesday. "This investigation has exposed critical vulnerabilities in the airline security industry and has illuminated methods that narcotics traffickers are utilizing."
Federal investigators say they have broken up a multimillion-dollar money laundering ring involving flight attendants who allegedly abused their airport access to smuggle $8 million in drug funds out of the U.S. Federal investigators say they have broken up a multimillion-dollar money laundering ring involving flight attendants who allegedly abused their airport access to smuggle $8 million in drug funds out of the U.S.
They allegedly used the code word "lotions" to mean drug cash and allegedly checked in with their handlers for cargo in advance of flights to the Caribbean nation and referred to the smuggling ring's drug-dealing clients as "los tigres," Spanish for "the tigers." When referring to "stuff," they meant the drugs, including fentanyl, that led to the illicit proceeds.
Hernandez is accused of smuggling at least $2.5 million between 2014 and 2019, according to court documents. During that same span, Pujols allegedly transported at least $1.5 million on flights to the Dominican Republic. Both Torres and Fabio are accused of smuggling more than $1.5 million apiece between 2015 and last year and face up to 15 years in prison.
In exchange for getting the cash through TSA checkpoints, they each allegedly received a small cut — around $1,000 to $2,000 per $60,000 smuggled.
"As alleged, these flight attendants smuggled millions of dollars of drug money and law enforcement funds that they thought was drug money from the United States to the Dominican Republic over many years by abusing their privileges as airline employees," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement.
Hernandez also faces conspiracy charges, bringing his maximum prison sentence to 20 years. Pujols faces the same conspiracy charge and an additional count of bulk cash smuggling, increasing her maximum possible penalty to 25 years behind bars if convicted.
She had been fired by her employer, an unspecified international airline, in 2019. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents allegedly found $60,000 in undeclared cash in her purse during a check on Dec. 20 of that year, according to the complaint.
Homeland Security Investigations and the NYPD began investigating an international drug trafficking and money laundering ring in 2018, leading them to an informant identified in court documents as "Cooperating Witness 1," who sold out his alleged mules.
After CBP agents stopped Pujols, the informant told federal investigators that Hernandez had another $60,000 which is currently unaccounted for.
I'm now thinking that we are approaching a time soon, when the media starts using catch phrases like "AI.. is there anything that it cannot do?"
But seriously, this flight control AI seems remarkable. It's probably been in the works for a while. My opinion: Like other forms of AI/Machine Learning, what it has to do is to exceed human performance as far as reducing the number of accidents/crashes, and then acceptance by the public will follow.
The chorus music teacher at my high school in the 80's would supposedly groom male students with the promise of sex after graduation. She used intimidation to silence any kids who noticed her behavior or found love letters, and then told their parents. It sounded so unbelievable back then, so any accusers were easily discredited.
Her statement against the bill, sounds well meaning as it goes on. But she keeps repeating "Anti-semitism". And I've read that it's possible that the "Semites" were actually the people traditionally living south of Israel (and not in it). So, it's interesting to consider what's up with her possibly coded explanation.
I consider that real NYC Firefighters mostly have heard it in detail by now, 20 years later what happened on 9/11/2001. And they likely suspect that some of the firefighters shown prominently in interviews on TV during 9/11, had never worked for the NYFD at all (in 2001). Let's Go, NYFD
The old saying "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" has never been true at big corporations. "The squeaky wheel gets replaced (fired)", is what they do.
May this whistleblower's death, be used as an example of why this cannot continue. And it's time to root out the perpetrators who boast how every employee is free to blow the whistle using their "safety hotline", while later on they secretly work to dead end the career of anyone who calls it.
There's no way that this guy went unnoticed for so many years. Some group purposefully allowed him to ascend to President of this Aquatic Club.
Also, FDIC seems to have kept a high security hotel in Arlington: https://www.arlnow.com/2023/11/14/fdic-scrutinized-for-toxic-culture-and-boozy-hotel-in-virginia-square/
Sad, but the percentage of pretty young girls/women that take drugs (especially pills), is higher than most people want to believe. And they will voluntarily hang out with the types of dudes who will give them those drugs.
There could be a silver lining in this story. It could be the move to shed some advisor/analyst type jobs, and replace them with computers that will instead consume the same misleading news articles, and then pass the information onto their customers using AI chat. Because, why pay someone a salary just to spread the fake news?
The guy who leaked Vault 7, was later charged and convicted of storing encrypted child porn on his home computer. Sounds like it could have been planted there in advance, as an insurance policy to later lock him up and throw away the keys. https://greatawakening.win/p/17r9N71VA7/joshua-schulte-who-leaked-vault-/c/
And then she (Paula Jones) posed for Penthouse magazine to top it all off. It's as if the DS wanted to show an example, of just how publicly embarrassing they could make things be, if Bill (and others around him) decided not to stick to their script.
Brings to mind the Feb 20, 2003 The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island/New England, which killed 100. Great White (band) was performing.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire
It's sometimes easy to forget that up until the last year or so, "setbacks" like this would have been discouraging. Now it might be considered encouraging, because we will learn later on, why this guy is not going to be leaving us/the movie quite so soon.
Doesn't really make me that sad, since it once was a Stock Market, which often burns the unenlightened small investors and people who are "too busy working". This seems a bit like karma... I remember hearing about people who worked very long hours during the dot com days around year 2k, for stock options which first made them owe significant taxes, and then the options just wound up worthless after the dot com crash (before they exercised them). And it was right around the time when they needed cash the most, because they lost their job. It was a disaster for them.
Darn, that show was a missed opportunity for someone to call in and ask him why they need magnetic balls and missile guidance software to play basketball nowadays, lol. https://greatawakening.win/p/17sibyqxz7/the-nba-is-rigged/c/
My thoughts: Hopefully he sticks with her. Because we can't yet predict what's coming up around the bend. Liberal politics may not exist in a couple of years if stuff that sounds majorly two faced to their liberal supporters, goes public. Some women can change their opinions on a dime, if things aren't right.
The MSM kept what info we knew about OJ, under wraps back then. The murder trial was before the Internet, and we didn't have so many eyes on the background history of OJ, his lawyers, and the prosecution. Weird things have been discovered about them since. An interesting take comes from Miles Mathis who thinks that the OJ Simpson trial was likely a staged prototype for the reality television show era that followed: http://mileswmathis.com/oj.pdf
Strippers tell non-stop lies to customers, to increase their tips. So they tend to also be good liers and fakers, outside of work. Stripper = Porn Star = Prostitute = Escort, the differences are mostly in job title.