COMPANIES NOT INVOLVED

By DAVID KIDWELL
Herald Staff Writer

Dozens of American Airlines employees and Sky Chef caterers were arrested
Wednesday, charged with smuggling drugs, hand grenades, and guns onto
passenger jets as part of a federal sting authorities say reveals
"dangerous and intolerable" security breaches at Miami International Airport.

Fifty-eight airport employees were indicted, most arrested by federal
agents at their homes before dawn Wednesday, the culmination of a two-year
undercover investigation that began when a pilot mistakenly sipped a cup of
coffee laced with heroin smuggled on board in a coffee filter.

Among those indicted are the son of Puerto Rico's police chief, 30 American
Airlines ramp employees, an American Eagle security guard, 13 Sky Chef
workers, and three law enforcement officers -- an immigration inspector, an
agriculture inspector, and a Broward sheriff's deputy who worked at the
airport part time.

"These people have sunk to the lowest depths in pursuit of greed," said
Vincent Mazzilli, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Miami office. "These employees were trusted by the various
agencies at MIA and by the public, and they let us all down."

The case -- dubbed Operation Ramp Rat and Operation Sky Chef -- once again
raises troubling questions about chronic security problems at Miami's
airport. After repeated instances of employee theft and smuggling over the
past decade, little has changed.

Although all those indicted in the United States were from Miami-Dade and
Broward counties, seven were indicted for crimes committed at New York's
John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Neither American Airlines nor Sky Chef executives were notified of the
impending arrests until after they had begun, a controversial move debated
hotly among the federal agencies involved.

"There are dangerous and intolerable conditions that exist at the airport
that could compromise the security of you and your family," U.S. Attorney
Tom Scott told reporters Wednesday as he pleaded for what he called "very
simple" security reforms.

"Now we pass the buck to you to make that happen."

Scott stopped short of criticizing company or airport management, but made
it clear "security measures at the airport are obviously insufficient to do
the job."

American Airlines responded with a written statement.

"While we are disturbed that a small group of employees were part of this
smuggling ring, their activities have been under federal government and
company surveillance for quite some time. We will continue our cooperative
efforts with law enforcement officials to stem the flow of illegal drugs."

Sky Chef spokesman Bill Flay said executives of his company also cooperated
with federal authorities: "We have a zero tolerance for drugs."

Federal sources said neither company was directly involved in the
investigation. American Airlines corporate security was utilized to do
background checks on targets.

During the two-year federal task force investigation led by the DEA,
undercover operatives at the airport set up shop as potential drug
smugglers looking for help, then waited. It didn't take long for employees
to take them up on it, Scott said. "And they kept on coming."

In 38 separate transactions since September 1997, some 283 kilograms of
sham cocaine were smuggled by the employees in backpacks as they bypassed
security through their employee access. In some cases, the off-duty
employees would use their company benefit of free plane rides -- sometimes
first class -- to smuggle the cocaine to other U.S. cities, authorities say.

"These are individuals who were not even supposed to be working," Scott
said. "They walked to the planes. They were never challenged, never stopped
and asked what they were doing there. They even used American Airlines
[luggage] tugs to move around the airport.

"By the end of this investigation, the agents and I believed we could put
anything on those planes we wanted," Scott said.

Grenades, gun

So that's what they did. On July 22 and again on Aug. 30, undercover agents
hired American ramp employees to smuggle three hand grenades and one
handgun onto passenger airlines. The weapons were secretly taken off the
planes by agents, but the deed was done, Scott said.

"It cost us $7,000," he said. "That's the price in Dade County to carry
hand grenades or guns onto an airplane."

One of the suspects arrested Wednesday is the son of Puerto Rico's highest
ranking law-enforcement official. Jose Toledo, 24, of 8820 SW 41st St., is
the son of Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo. Superintendent Toledo, en
route back to the island Wednesday night, told El Nuevo Dia, a Puerto Rican
daily: "I am confounded that one of my six children could be involved in
this situation. . . . The legal system will decide if my son did this. No
one is above the law: not me, not him."

Another of the employees charged with smuggling the grenades was working at
the airport despite 1991 charges of burglary, forgery, and possession of
counterfeit coins.

Background checks

As part of a 1986 edict from U.S. Customs after 22 Eastern employees were
charged in a similar sting, background checks are required of all airport
employees with access to cargo.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the FAA
plans to audit the background checks of the employees who were arrested.

"We need to be sure that those checks were done properly," she said.

The FAA has also fought hard to force airport employees to pass through
metal detectors at the beginning and end of their shifts, and for policies
designed to encourage employees to report unauthorized individuals in
restricted areas.

"I've been in those meetings where the FAA proposes those things, and they
have the airlines screaming bloody murder about costs," said David Bates,
president of the local Transport Workers Union, which represents American's
ramp workers.

"The way it is now, Customs has the right to search any one of us on
request," he said. "Frankly, we'd rather have to walk through metal
detectors than have people rifling our belongings."

Numerous videotapes

Federal authorities say they have numerous videotapes showing uniformed
employees passing unchecked through security points with backpacks filled
with cocaine, then either handing them off to other cargo workers or
placing them on the plane themselves.

The investigation began after agents developed informants while
investigating the heroin ingested by the pilot. Those leads led indirectly
to other informants who helped agents win entry into what they say is a
secretive and unorganized system of ramp crews competing against one
another for smuggling work.

The undercover agents said they paid corrupt employees $500 per kilo to
smuggle the drugs past the passenger security checkpoint and hand them back
to them to board the plane. The cost was $1,700 for the employee to smuggle
the drugs onto the plane directly, sources said.

"There are four or five crews who we couldn't even get close to because
they only smuggle huge amounts," said one law enforcement source. "We
didn't have enough money to pay them."

As it was, agents paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the alleged
smugglers.

Operation Sky Chef, led by U.S. Customs agents, focused on the airline
caterers who supply in-flight meals. Most of these employees were smuggling
the drugs in compartments on the carts that held passenger meals, Scott said.

Since the smuggled drugs often left their sight and control, investigators
chose to use fake cocaine manufactured to test positive, feel and smell
like cocaine. To avoid the DEA's $275 per kilo cost to manufacture the
hi-tech substitute, DEA agents turned to Colombian authorities, who hired a
convicted cocaine counterfeiter to make it for $50 per kilo, authorities said.

During searches conducted at suspects' homes on Wednesday, agents seized
$69,000 in cash, a safe, and five laptop computers believed to be stolen
from luggage.

"So you better check your bags next time you fly through MIA," Mazzilli said.

Herald staff writers Ina Paiva Cordle, Ronnie Greene and Sara Olkon
contributed to this report.