A skittish flight attendant heading to LaGuardia airport flew into a panic at a security gate ditching two suitcases full of clothes, condoms and nearly 70 pounds of cocaine, before kicking off her Gucci shoes and managing to escape pursuing TSA agents.
The unidentified woman was trying to catch a red eye flight from LAX to New York at 7 p.m. Friday when she was randomly stopped at a checkpoint reserved for airline workers, according to the LAPD.
Normally, flight crews using that gate get minimal scrutiny. But the nervous drug mule got unlucky and was randomly chosen to have her bags inspected.
Realizing she was on the brink of being busted, cops said the female flight attendant got nervous. She used her cell phone to make a call to someone, speaking in a language that the agents did not recognize as English or Spanish.
As security escorted her the front of the screening area, she finally came to the conclusion that the jig was up and took off running, according to police.
She made it about 15 feet with her carry-on bags before ditching them leaving behind a large cache of dope. She also abandoned her designer footwear.
“She kicked her high heels off and left her shoes and bag behind,” said Marshall McClain, of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Association.
“She knew if she dropped both of them she’d be able to run away more quickly,” he explained. “She was then able to high-foot it out of the terminal, down an up escalator while barefoot, where we assume she got into a car and took off to parts unknown.”
In her bags, TSA agents found clothes, Trojan Magnum condoms and 68.49 pounds of cocaine wrapped in green saran wrap and labeled, “BIG Ranch,” cops said.
She also left behind her leather, size 8.5 Gucci shoes.
Even though the woman showed TSA agents her ID and really was a flight attendant, no one at the TSA got her name, police said.
“This is a big security failure as far as I’m concerned,” McClain said. The TSA declined to comment on the incident.
Authorities told NBC Los Angeles that she was scheduled to board Flight 028 from LAX to LaGuardia on Friday night.
