Nassau, Bahamas –– In the wake of the recent massive cocaine seizure at LPIA, some foreign officials have begun to express concern over the security operations at LPIA. They include:
– That the cocaine seized was already on an airplane and was only discovered inadvertently;
– That the contraband was carried over the tarmac possibly with the assistance of others;
It is unlikely that the scheme is the work of one person. Says one official, “This is a very large amount of cocaine. It would be foolhardy think that this is a one man operation. There must be others in the conspiracy just waiting for the next opportunity to smuggle especially if this vulnerability is not corrected forthwith”.
Bahamas Press is wondering what would have been the cry if this were large pounds of explosives loaded on an international flight headed into the airspace of the United States.
This spells tragedy for our entire tourism product. Heads must roll and every level of security at LPIA must answer to this crime!
Police appear to be leading the investigation when LPIA security officials should be running a parallel one to see why the system was attacked and seriously breached.
Concern was also expressed over the ability of the present security to manage an expanded LPIA. The original terminals and operations areas were difficult enough for LPIA security to manage.
Additionally, there is a serious lack of training at the top of LPIA security. Many ex-policemen who are not security trained are said to abuse staff verbally. Indeed a senior consultant is currently facing court charges for an assault. The abusive behavior appears to be institutionalized.
This foolishness would never happen under Mrs. Hanna-Martin when she was the Minister last time. She put the experts in place and made sure that we had a safe and efficient airport and staff was treated with respect.
We need to return to those days otherwise you have a bunch of disgruntled employees and anything is possible, even a potential terrorist risk could unfold out of LPIA security lack.
