Did you hear about the guy who tried to smuggle live snakes — in his pants —past Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Miami? How about the man who claimed he had no idea there was a knife in his boot when trying to board a plane in Williamsburg? Meth in a crutch? A gun in a baby stroller?
These are just some of TSA’s Top 10 Best Catches of 2024, with Newark Liberty International Airport making the list at No. 8. The crime? A cleverly disguised 9mm handgun.
A Mississippi man was arrested trying to board a plane in Newark when TSA discovered the disassembled weapon tucked inside a boot and a Lego set, TSA said in a video and press release.
The TSA officer detected the fully disassembled 9mm firearm in a carry-on bag at a checkpoint in Terminal A as the man’s duffle bag entered the checkpoint X-ray machine. The gun frame was jammed in the bottom of a boot below a sock that had been stuffed behind it to help conceal it. The gun’s slide, spring and gun magazine loaded with 12 bullets were detected mixed among the plastic pieces of a Black Panther LEGO set.
Port Authority Police were alerted, confiscated the items, and arrested the man, who was ticketed to fly to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
“This is an example of someone who was intentionally attempting to carry a gun onto a flight,” said Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey. “He kept changing his story, first telling us that it was a toy gun and then claiming that it belonged to his brother. Regardless of his claims, what I can tell you is that it was a fully disassembled firearm that he could easily have assembled and used on a plane.”
For more information on what you can and cannot bring through a TSA security checkpoint, visit www.tsa.gov.
