The airline claimed that it would deliver your bag to your home after you waited in vain at baggage claim.
A Florida man has been charged with theft after a passenger on a flight departing from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in March tracked his stolen luggage to the man's home, Reuters reported. CNN Based on the investigation files of the case.
The victim was supposed to leave the airport on the evening of March 3 on a Spirit Airlines plane, but the airline canceled the flight and told all passengers that they could collect their checked baggage in the baggage belt in Terminal 4, the report said.
Paola Garcia told CNN Miami's WPLG that she usually takes her bag on the plane, but this time she was told she had to give it up. Garcia said she waited at least two hours for her pink suitcase, which contained an Apple MacBook, Apple iPad, Apple Watch, jewelry, luxury women's clothing and toiletries, but the suitcase never made it to the luggage belt. Spirit Airlines then informed him that his package had been sent to his home, but the luggage had not arrived there. So Garcia set out to track him down using his electronic tracking device.
Garcia's device indicated an address in Fort Lauderdale, where he went to pick up his belongings, and at the home he recorded footage and “saw several packages in front of the house,” none of which were his.
He called 911, where he was first warned he was in a dangerous place. When a county sheriff's office investigator looked up the address in the airport employee database, he found it to be that of 29-year-old Junior Genius Bazile. Bazile was listed as an employee at a store at the airport, and was also working on the day of the robbery, according to a court affidavit.
The store provided police with internal footage taken on the day of the incident, showing Bazil entering the store's storage area with a pink clamshell bag and searching through the bags, before he is shown removing a MacBook and other small items from the bag, etc. He puts them in bags.
Belize He pleaded not guilty and posted $30,000 bail. The next court hearing in the case is scheduled for August.
The airline told CNN that while it was “not aware of any evidence that any Spirit employees were involved,” the airline issued a refund check to the victim as a “courtesy.”
