PHL“Every third bag was pilfered, every single flight was checked, and only one percent of these incidents were investigated,” prosecutor Eduard Shevchenko said in describing the massive scope of fraud in the nation’s largest international airport.
Major air carriers in Ukraine reported more than 11,000 thefts in 2007. Police, however, registered just 578 incidents for the same period of time. They opened criminal proceedings only in nine cases. After an investigation exposed the staggering difference in reported thefts between the airlines and police, the General Prosecutor’s Office last month busted a police squad and six luggage handlers.
“I was waiting 45 minutes for my suitcase,” said Kateryna Koval, a victim of baggage looting after arriving in Ukraine from a recent trip to Istanbul. “What do you think they were doing all this time? They were pulling things out and now an airport handler somewhere is one camera richer!”
Celebrities, prominent businessmen, ambassadors and even students–all have fallen prey to luggage thieves. Passengers reported cameras, jewelry, laptops and other valuables missing from their checkedin cargo after crossing a Ukrainian border.
Prosecutor Shevchenko said that police and airport security workers responsible for escorting passengers’ bags from the airport to an airplane “were practically ignoring their duties.”
In summer, with herds of holiday makers rushing to get away, baglifting spoils many a holiday.
“A luggage mafia exists, it’s a fact. Chaining middle management and lower level personnel, it works on the principles of kinship and joint responsibility,” claims investigative journalist Artem Shevchenko.
His TV program “Undercover Agents,” echoing British “Dispatches” and America’s “60 Minutes,” went behind the scenes in Boryspil in winter 2008 to trace stolen cameras and laptops. “Undercover Agents” is broadcast Mondays at 10:30 p.m. on Inter TV channel. Shevchenko discovered that the first serious probe into the “growing trend” was ordered by a parliamentarian whose wife’s jewelry was stolen on a flight from Los Angeles.
The deputy, Igor Shkirya of the Party of Regions, served on the transport committee at the time. He joined forces with aviation officials to investigate luggage fraud and his wife’s missing $14,000 rings and earrings.
This commission found out that a passenger with a valuable load goes through a chain of welltrained personnel who have their own Morse code for baglifting. The weakest link in this route is the luggage section on a plane. Without security cameras, handlers find themselves alone with travelers’ luggage and their valuables.
“We learned there’s a black market for stolen goods and even catalogue orders of what’s needed,” the journalist said, referring to the scale of fraud.
Prosecutors deny that there is an organized chain, so do Boryspil officials. “Luggage looting is one of the main problems airports face all over the world,” airport officials explain on their website’s front page. A special department for air security has been set up to tighten control. Twenty luggage handlers “who could not be trusted” have been fired over the last few years, according to the website.
“Agent” Shevchenko, however, says that these measures are a pretense more than anything else. “There was a case when a handler got caught, but then was exonerated by the court. That’s because they all cover up for each other.”
He also found out that many handlers had criminal convictions in the past. The prosecutors have confirmed this information.
At the popular Ukrainian aviation portal, www.aviation.com.ua, a technician working for one of the airlines laid out his observations of luggage theft in Boryspil. Wishing to remain anonymous, he wrote that the airport’s security system is corrupt all the way through. He said that a point of travel or an air company makes no difference to those who steal. He advised that locks or cellophane wrappings were no obstacles to handlers who can pinch anything, even perfume.
Since handling companies are hired by the airport, airlines complain of little control over passengers’ bags. Nevertheless, airlines are liable for lost or stolen luggage at the end of a flight.
Ukraine handles complaints under the Warsaw Convention, an airline responsibility system that allows companies to reimburse passengers for lost luggage according to the recorded weight of a suitcase, not by the actual value of its contents. These rules set airline liability at $20 per kilo with a maximum of $640 per suitcase.
So, if a $500 camera weighing just 400 grams has been looted by baggage inspectors, one is likely to get only $8 back for it.
The General Prosecutor’s Office, which has investigated the theft problem, points fingers at the police department in Boryspil. Prosecutors have replaced an entire squad in the airport and approached Minister of Interior Yuriy Lutsenko to punish higherranking officials for negligence. They also advise air carriers to install security cameras in airplane’s bellies.
Major airlines for their part suggest diversifying luggage handling companies to prevent theft.
Shevchenko from “Undercover Agents” agrees with Boryspil officials that baglifting is an international problem. But in Ukraine, he says, “it’s a trend of threatening dimensions.” Outside of Ukraine, pilfering is so rare that major European carriers do not even distinguish between pilfered and other mishandled bags when filing their reports to the Association of European Airlines.
The journalist believes, however, that tolerance for the thefts will decline as the General Prosecutor’s Office shines a spotlight on the problem.
For the time being, Ukrainian airport officials advise travelers to pack smart and zip valuables into carryon bags.
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