23 Airline Workers Indicted

Twenty-two Eastern Airlines workers and one employee of Mexicana Airlines were accused in a federal indictment today of using their jobs as cargo and baggage handlers to help smuggle cocaine into the United States.

The workers diverted shipments of cocaine “to preclude its seizure and thereby facilitate its unlawful entry” through Miami International Airport, the indictment alleges. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials have alleged that Colombian drug smugglers, aided by baggage handlers, used commercial jets to deliver as much as 300 pounds of cocaine a week for four years through Miami.