A man who worked as a porter for Southwest Airlines was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to knowingly possessing stolen weapons, The Associated Press news agency reported Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors reported that Mark Hunter, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, was charged with theft after a passenger traveling through Louis Lambert International Airport reported
that a pistol had been stolen from luggage he had checked for travel.
[They detect a stowaway in flight from Guatemala that landed at the Miami airport, according to reports]
Southwest Airlines planes at Lambert International Airport, St. Louis, Missouri, in March 2013.Tom Gannam / REUTERS
Upon investigation,
agents discovered that there were seven reports of weapons stolen from the luggage of different travelers
who had flown with Southwest Airlines in a five-month period in 2020.
They compared employees' arrival and departure records with the dates the robberies had occurred.
Then, they began to focus on one person, Hunter, who had been on duty during the incidents.
Air travel recovers after the increase in travelers for Thanksgiving
Nov. 29, 202100: 25
The man later admitted that he had stolen five pistols from luggage traveling in the lower compartment of the plane, according to prosecutors.
Hunter additionally faces three years of supervised release.
