Immigration Police Met Plane

[Doe Be Doe]

I took a weekend trip to Colombia. When I returned to the US the immigration police met the plane. Each passenger had to show their passport and have their carry-on searched as they left the jetway to enter the airport. I have never encountered this before. I assume the police were searching for drugs? Has anyone else ever experienced this? It really delayed getting off the plane. Then we still had to go through the regular immigration and customs. Very annoying.

[+ sync]

An operation that spontaneous and intense suggests to me that they were searching for something considerably more critical than illegal drugs.

[Doe Be Doe]

"An operation that spontaneous and intense suggests to me that they were searching for something considerably more critical than illegal drugs."

Like what I wonder? It was definitely annoying but also very unusual. There were two initial screeners checking passports who were not friendly at all. Then there were six agents searching carry-on baggage. They were polite and friendly but they were also really searching the bags. 

[Luv2play]

This sounds to me like a special operation where the authorities had received a tip.

[+ Lucky]

Story on the news tonight was that airport workers in South America were collaborating with workers at JFK to smuggle cocaine...in the cockpit! Apparently the pilots didn't know it was there. Maybe that's why the police met this flight.

[lonely_john]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:47 PM, Doe Be Doe said:

I took a weekend trip to Colombia. When I returned to the US the immigration police met the plane. Each passenger had to show their passport and have their carry-on searched as they left the jetway to enter the airport. I have never encountered this before. I assume the police were searching for drugs? Has anyone else ever experienced this? It really delayed getting off the plane. Then we still had to go through the regular immigration and customs. Very annoying.

The same happened to me when I returned from my trip to Latin America.

[EZEtoGRU]

On 3/17/2022 at 9:11 PM, Lucky said:

Story on the news tonight was that airport workers in South America were collaborating with workers at JFK to smuggle cocaine...in the cockpit!

Very plausible.   I had something similar happen in 1986 or 1987 when I was on an Eastern Airlines flight from Cali to Miami.  The plane made an unscheduled stop in Panama.  We all had to disembark the aircraft and claim our bags one by one on the tarmac.  One person was apprehended by the police/military.  We were told they also found 14 kilos of cocaine behind the wall panels of one of the bathrooms on the plane.  Somehow Eastern had been tipped off that there were drugs on the flight.  My understanding was that airport workers in Cali and Miami were involved in the drug smuggling operation.