An undercover investigation of goings-on in El Al’s King David Lounge at Ben-Gurion International Airport revealed that employees were stealing from the business class passengers. The investigation led to the arrest of 15 suspects.
Commander Yisrael Klein, who headed the investigation, reports that the suspects allegedly stole valuable food items, with some doing so for a number of years without the knowledge of others involved. Among the items sought after were expensive wines and alcoholic beverages, salmon and other expensive delicacies.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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2 Responses
This is nothing new. Two years ago, our camera was stolen from our carry-on luggage (which was was taken away from us on the plane, against our will, and placed down in the baggage hold,since there was no room in the overhead lockers by the time we reached our seats.)
I still remember how they didn’t give us time to take out valuables and sure enough we only noticed a while later that our brand new camera was missing. A few months later there was an article in the Hamodia that the head of baggage control in Ben Gurion was arrested for theft from passengers’ baggage, and that anyone who had items stolen should contact airport police, since they had retrieved some of the stolen stuff.
We called the police numerous times and they were extremely unhelpful, finally telling us to come down to the airport and look for it ourselves. My husband was at the airport a short time later and went to look…he was directed a room where he said there was literally hundreds of expensive cameras and a lot of other valuable electronic equipment…all waiting to be claimed by owners…
Of course, our camera wasn’t there. But El Al did reimburse us for…$25. They explained that this was the value of the metal – their insurance policy doesn’t allow them to reimburse for valuable items so they classed our Canon digital camera as a piece of steel, weighed it, and sent us a check for….108 NIS (then $25!!).
So as I said, stealing is nothing new at Ben Gurion…
Why does this not surprise me….