DRUG-SMUGGLING STING AT MIAMI AIRPORT NETS 15 ADDITIONAL SUSPECTS

MIAMI -- Undercover agents, working to bring down a widespread
drug-smuggling operation at Miami International Airport, thought that the
arrests last month of more than 40 baggage handlers and food service workers
on drug charges might force other suspects at the airport to be more cautious.

Instead, after dodging one bullet, the remaining suspects just assumed they
were bulletproof, said federal investigators, who arrested 15 more people
Thursday morning and charged them with conspiracy to import cocaine.

Just days after the headline-grabbing arrests on Aug. 25, employees of
several contract service companies that provide food, maintenance and
baggage handling at the airport were back at work smuggling what they
believed to be cocaine -- it was actually fake drugs substituted by
undercover agents -- aboard Air Aruba, Bahamas Air and Ecuatoriana flights,
federal officials said.

On one flight into Miami International, U.S. Attorney Tom Scott said, a
baggage handler took only 23 minutes after touchdown to retrieve what he
believed to be a package of cocaine and pass it on to a man waiting at the
airport.

"Do any of you get bags in 23 minutes?" Scott asked reporters at a news
conference Thursday.

Unfortunately for the baggage handler, he handed the parcel over to an
undercover drug agent, Scott said.

It was one of many signs, the investigators said, that their suspects were
long on ambition but short on smarts.

Brent Eaton, special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, said
one suspect told undercover agents: "Look, don't worry. Everything is
business as usual. We're a lot smarter than those guys. They didn't know how
to handle these kinds of situations."

Investigators could not resist shaking their heads at the audacity of it.

Even as indictments were being issued in the first round of arrests, "they
were still smuggling," said Pat Jones, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs
Bureau, another agency involved in the sting operation. It is the second
such sting in two weeks that has shown glaring lapses in the airport's security.

The first sting, on Aug. 25, led to the arrests of 58 people, including 30
American Airlines workers, 13 employees with the food contractor LSG/Sky
Chefs, a Department of Agriculture inspector, an employee with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and an off-duty employee of the
Broward County Sheriff's Department.

They were charged with smuggling what they believed to be small shipments of
heroin, hundreds of pounds of cocaine, a loaded pistol and three hand
grenades, federal officials said.

Workers arrested in August stashed their illegal cargo in the small packets
of coffee served by flight attendants, in wheel compartments, wall panels,
luggage bays and, on one plane, inside the wing, federal investigators said.

When federal agents working undercover at the airport asked other targets of
their ongoing investigation if they should lay low for a while, the
suspected smugglers "repeatedly assured them there was no problem," Jones said.

The smuggling operation came to light two years ago when an American
Airlines pilot was accidentally served a mixture of coffee and heroin from a
smuggled parcel and complained that his coffee tasted funny.

The smugglers used their identification cards to bypass security at the
airport, even on days when they were not scheduled to work, and were never
challenged by airport security.

"Our No. 1 mission is to protect the traveling public from terrorists'
attacks," said Lauren Stover, the associate director of public affairs at
Miami International Airport. "Our job is not to intercept drugs."