AMERICAN AIRLINES STAFF ARRESTED IN DRUG STING

MIAMI (Reuters) - Nearly 60 American Airlines baggage handlers and food
contractors were charged Wednesday with smuggling what they believed to be
cocaine, grenades and guns onto passenger planes at the Miami airport in a
sting that federal agents said turned up glaring security lapses.

"We were convinced we could basically get anything on the planes," said
U.S. Attorney Tom Scott, whose office led the sting. "The procedures that
do exist were breached and the security procedures at that airport are
obviously insufficient to do the job."

No real weapons or drugs made it onto the planes during the two sting
operations, agents said.

One, "Operation Ramp Rats," targeted ramp workers employed by American and
was prompted by tips that employees were selling their security access to
put illegal drugs on planes.

The other targeted food workers employed by Lufthansa Service Sky Chefs, a
catering service under contract with American. It was prompted by the
discovery of a load of genuine heroin that had been smuggled onto a plane
in coffee packets, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Taylor said.

Officials at Sky Chefs were unavailable for comment.

The heroin-coffee mixture was accidentally brewed up and served to the
pilot, who reported that his coffee had a strange flavor and "tasted weak,"
Scott and Taylor said.

Fifty-eight people were indicted, including 13 Sky Chefs workers, 30
American Airlines workers, a federal agriculture inspector, an Immigration
and Naturalization Service agent and a Broward County, Florida, sheriff's
employee. The rest were described by prosecutors as street-level drug dealers.

Federal agents fanned out at 4 a.m. EDT to arrest the suspects, nabbing
some at the airport and rousing others from their beds.

Scott said the American employees flew 660 pounds of fake cocaine into
Miami aboard flights from Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador, then used their
free airline passes to ferry the drugs aboard flights to Washington D.C.,
Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in the northeastern United States.

They were uniformed but off duty, and carried the drugs aboard in their
backpacks or placed the packages aboard while the planes sat on the ground
in supposedly secure areas, Scott said.

Other off-duty workers retrieved contraband from planes that had just
landed, loading it onto American baggage carts, then driving it into
restricted access areas of the terminal.

"These are individuals that were not scheduled to work that day. They were
never challenged. They were never asked, 'Why are you here?''' Scott said.
"These planes are supposed to be sealed off."

At least twice, undercover agents paid ramp workers to carry hand grenades
and guns aboard the planes in their backpacks, then substituted dummy
weapons to avoid endangering passengers. Scott said the going price to
smuggle grenades aboard was $7,000.

"One of the defendants did show some concern. He was worried about blowing
himself up when he carried it onto the airplane," said Patricia Galupo,
special agent in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
firearms' Miami office.

Investigators said the food service workers stashed bundles of what they
believed to be cocaine into the sides of the metal food carts, then wheeled
them aboard.

"These employees were trusted by the various agencies at Miami
International Airport and by the public," said Vincent Mazzilli, acting
special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami office. "They
let us all down."

American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp (NYSE:AAR - news), said it cooperated
with federal authorities throughout the two-year probe.

"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," the airline said in a statement.

Scott disputed that a "small group" was involved, saying "This is not a
case of one or two rogues." He said investigators documented more than 38
drug and weapons transactions by some 30 American workers.

DEA spokesman Brent Eaton said there were so many suspects arrested that
the DEA had to borrow a bus from federal marshals to hold them all while
they were booked and fingerprinted.

The suspects were charged with conspiring to smuggle drugs and drug and
weapons violations. Charges against them were spelled out in several
federal indictments returned in south Florida and in the eastern District
of New York.

Colombia's state security police aided in the U.S. investigation, which
they said led to the recent drug arrests of 10 people in the southwest city
of Cali. The suspects allegedly infiltrated a company that carried out
maintenance on American Airlines passenger jets.