In 2012, an agent from the Transportation Safety Administration was reprimanded for stealing from passenger’s luggage. He also admitted that this type of crime is quite common among other agents. Thankfully, a man recently posted a video to YouTube in order to show people how things are stolen from their luggage by these dishonest baggage handlers and what they can do about it.
In the video, he begins by explaining that he recently came back from a trip to Africa, and one of the men he was traveling with lost a lot of the things he was carrying in his suitcase. He shows the suitcase that the man was using during the trip, and he pointed out the lock he had on his luggage. He noted that, while these locks are easy to pick, that isn’t necessarily how baggage handlers are getting into your suitcase. He said that it actually doesn’t even matter what kind of lock you have on your suitcase, baggage handlers can still get in.
He explained that all they have to do is slide the zipper handle to the side and use a ballpoint pen to poke through the zipper’s seam. This causes the zipper to come undone without them having to use the zipper handle. They then have access to everything in your suitcase. After they take what they want from the suitcase, they can zipper it back up to make it appear as though nothing was tampered with. In order to avoid this problem, the man recommends using a hard sided suitcase without zippers. He also said that, contrary to popular belief, you can use whatever locks you want. If airport security officers want to look through your suitcase, they will let you know, and you can provide them with the key.
