3 shocking cases of flight attendants transporting banned substances

Hiding banned substances in his stomach because he thought he would not be checked if he was a flight attendant

On October 4, 2022, a flight attendant named Terese White of Mesa Airlines was arrested for hiding a large amount of fentanyl in her stomach. Fentanyl is as dangerous as drugs. One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people. It is known that this substance is linked to the deaths of more than 70,000 Americans in 2021.

According to the document, when this woman stepped through the camera at the San Diego airport, officers discovered a large mass in her abdomen but could not determine what it was. The female employee protested and said that it was actually a package of mercury.

After being sampled and tested, they found that she intentionally concealed more than 3.33 pounds (1.51kg) of fentanyl in her body.

Explaining this reckless act, Terese thought she could take advantage of the flight attendant’s privilege to circumvent the strict security checks.

In fact, this behavior almost failed. Usually, thanks to the privileges of a flight attendant, Terese is able to avoid the security checks that passengers have to go through. This privilege is called “The known crewmember program”,

Under this program, airline employees can easily get through security by showing a card and their luggage will not be scanned. However, from time to time, there will still be random checks if program supervisors feel something is suspicious. And unlucky for Terese, that day agents randomly selected her to test. Terese was forced to go through the scanner like any other passenger.

After being questioned many times, the flight attendant admitted her intention to distribute fentanyl, although it is unclear to whom and where to distribute. Currently, she faces up to 20 years in prison and will be sentenced on March 24, 2023 in federal court in the Southern District of California.

Transporting drugs to pay for children’s hospital fees

In 2019, a Malaysian flight attendant named Zailee Zainal was arrested for hiding a quantity of drugs in her underwear. Drugs worth millions of dollars. However, this is not the first time she has transported drugs. Zailee smuggled more than 4kg of heroin in eight trips from October 2018 to January 2019. She kept the drug packages between her legs or in her bra and stored them in the bathroom on every flight.

In January 2019, at Melbourne Airport, she was arrested by the Australian Border Force after being randomly selected for a search. The court concluded that Zailee’s transportation was related to an international criminal organization. The former flight attendant confessed that she “taken risks” because she wanted to pay the medical bills for her children.

Before that, she had to do some business on her own to earn extra money. When he received an “invitation” to transport drugs, Zailee told the court: “I was very fragile at that time, vulnerable so I was ready to do anything.”

According to the report, the organization has given Zailee extensive training, teaching her shipping codes and showing her how to walk confidently and comfortably while clamping packages between her legs. According to the original plan, upon arriving in Australia, Zailee would immediately go to a hotel, go to the bathroom and exchange heroin for cash hidden in the toilet.

After the incident, Zailee was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison.

The former runner ran away to get someone when he was discovered

In 2016, flight attendant Marsha Gay Reynolds (who was once a runner-up in a beauty pageant in Jamaica), was found to be carrying banned substances at Los Angeles International Airport, USA. According to sources, when she was randomly stopped at the scanner area, Marsha threw away her belongings and took off her shoes to make her escape. Inside her handbag and suitcase were 70 pounds (31.7kg) of cocaine, estimated to be worth $2 million.

This woman is quite agile, she rushed out of the control area barefoot, down the escalator and took a taxi to escape. However, a few days later, Marsha turned herself in to authorities in New York.

A special feature of this incident is that the police have tracked down the person behind the transport line. This guy’s name is Gaston Brown, 52 years old and a Jamaican citizen. After his accomplice Marsha was arrested, Brown went to Jamaica under a false identity. He was arrested several months after attempting to enter the United States illegally by sea. When he turned over his criminal records, it was discovered that in 2014, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for illegal cocaine distribution and identity theft. In the failed cooperation with Marsha, the man was sentenced to 165 months in prison.

It is known that Brown paid the flight attendant to transport the suitcases of drugs or drug money through airport checkpoints at least six times (between October 2015 and May). March 2016).