Airport Employee Using Troutman as Role Model

By Laura Oppenheimer in News on Jan 30, 2007 8:35PM

Riad Skaff, an employee at O'Hare International Airport has recently been taking lessons in how to be a good employee from Arenda Troutman; Skaff was charged yesterday by federal investigators with allowing the smuggling of money onto planes headed overseas.

By law, travelers must declare how much money they are carrying, if they are taking more than $10,000 outside of the country. Skaff hooked a federal investigator up with a combined $396,000 in cash over two years. In return, he received approximately $21,000. On one trip, the agent also smuggled a device capable of jamming cell phone reception. If you were every wondering how to smuggle money/contraband aboard an airline, don't worry, it doesn't seem too complicated:

An undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent passed cash to Skaff in a public area in the international terminal. The agent then would pass through the security checkpoint without the cash, then Skaff would return it as the agent was about to board a flight, according to prosecutors.

Interesting to know, not that we have any imminent plans to replicate this ingenious and oh-so-obvious technique.

Skaff is now on house arrest, has been ordered to surrender all airport security-access cards and is forbidden to enter any airports. It is also worth nothing that Skaff obtained his access card to work for Sunline Services Inc. without undergoing a background screening.