ATLANTA, (Reuters) – A Delta Air Lines baggage handler has been charged with helping another man smuggle 18 handguns onto a flight from Atlanta to New York City, in a scheme that prosecutors said ran for years and also involved assault weapons.
Eugene Harvey, 31, has been charged with helping a former Delta employee, Mark Quentin Henry, avoid detection of the guns by airport security on Dec. 10 before Henry boarded a passenger jet with the firearms in a carry-on bag, court records show.
Henry was arrested after arriving in New York, and federal agents took Harvey into custody at his Atlanta-area home on Dec. 20, Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Stephen Emmett said on Tuesday.
“Henry has been smuggling guns on commercial airliners for years, for at least five years,” said Kenneth Thompson, district attorney for New York’s borough of Brooklyn, whose office worked on the investigation.
