NEW YORK – A Transportation Security Administration agent stole $5,000 in cash from a passenger’s jacket as he was going through security at John F. Kennedy International Airport, authorities said Thursday, the latest in a string of thefts that has embarrassed the agency.
Alexandra Schmid took the cash from a Bangladeshi passenger’s jacket as it went along an X-ray conveyor belt Wednesday night in Terminal 4, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s police force.
Surveillance video showed Schmid taking the money from a jacket pocket, wrapping the cash in a plastic glove and taking it to a bathroom, Della Fave said.
The money hasn’t been recovered, he said. Police are investigating whether Schmid gave it to another person in the bathroom.
The 31-year-old Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation. Her attorney’s name wasn’t immediately known.
Schmid, who lived in Brooklyn, had worked for the TSA for 4 1/2 years, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.
“We do hold our officers to very high standards, and we have a zero tolerance policy for theft in the workplace,” Farbstein said.
Wednesday’s arrest came the same day that a federal judge sentenced former TSA
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