AIRLINE CREW CHARGED IN DRUG BUST

U.S. Indicts 23, Including Nine American Workers, in Alleged Cocaine
Trafficking Plot

Federal prosecutors charged 23 people, including nine American
Airlines' employees, with operating a smuggling ring that shipped
thousands of pounds of cocaine in suitcases on flights from Puerto
Rico to the U.S. mainland.

Smugglers allegedly recruited members of the airline's ground crew at
San Juan's international airport to ensure that drugs loaded onto
aircraft avoided detection during shipment to several U.S. cities,
according to a grand jury indictment filed in U.S. District Court in
Puerto Rico. The smugglers allegedly transported more than 9,000
kilograms of cocaine on American flights beginning in 1999, according
to federal investigators.

The American employees would receive cocaine from traffickers, then
buy suitcases and pack each one with about 30 kilograms, or about 66
pounds, of cocaine, according to the indictment.

The suitcases were then packed in airline shipping containers with
luggage tags and loaded onto aircraft. The DEA discovered the alleged
operation in March, after a neighbor noticed American Airlines
shipping containers at a house in a residential area. The neighbor
called local police, who found cocaine inside the containers,
according to a person familiar with the investigation.

An American worker in Miami who, according to the indictment,
coordinated the movement of suitcases onto conveyor belts in what were
supposed to be secure airport areas, was among those arrested.

The alleged ringleader, a former American cargo employee, surrendered
at a federal courthouse in San Juan Tuesday afternoon.

"The use of commercial aircraft to smuggle narcotics in and out of
Puerto Rico...creates a serious threat to our national security," said
Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico.

A spokesman for American, a unit of Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp.,
said the airline has been working with authorities on the case. "These
events are really, really rare," said Tim Wagner, an American spokesman.

American is the biggest U.S. carrier in the Latin American and
Caribbean regions, with a 37.2% market share there in June, according
to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The smuggling operation is one of several uncovered by U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents in recent years that allegedly used
airline workers and commercial aircraft to ship drugs or launder cash
proceeds from drug sales.

Caribbean nations and territories, including Haiti and Puerto Rico,
have become more significant conduits for Colombian cocaine and
heroine as drug traffickers shift some operations from the main
Pacific corridor and Mexico under pressure from law enforcement, and
to avoid warring Mexican drug cartels, according to Bruce Bagley,
chair of International Studies at University of Miami.

Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, is an attractive drug route because
commercial flights to the U.S. aren't routinely subject to inspection,
unlike flights from foreign countries.

Mr. Bagley said conduits such as American Airlines workers appear to
be "relatively small potatoes," with most drugs being transported by
cargo ships and human "mules."

In 1999, 37 American Airlines workers were among more than 50 people
charged in a smuggling operation that investigators stumbled upon when
a flight attendant unwittingly served heroin-laced coffee to an
American pilot. Investigators said the smugglers had stashed drugs in
aircraft floorboards and even in coffee pot filters. In 2003, federal
airport inspectors in Miami found packages of cocaine stashed
alongside coffee and snacks aboard a flight operated by Colombian
carrier, Avianca S.A.

Following a 2004 investigation, a former American Airlines security
official at Haiti's main international airport pleaded guilty to
participating in a ring that smuggled cocaine inside suitcases bound
for U.S. destinations.

In another case in Puerto Rico in 2004, nine American Airlines workers
were among 20 airport employees indicted for helping move cocaine
through the San Juan airport.

All airport and airline employees in the U.S. and Puerto Rico undergo
background checks for potential security threats and are continuously
vetted, saon. Airport and airline employees also are subjected to
random physical inspections, including their belongings, he added