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Dutch journalist gets past security at Schiphol Airport
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
, PARIS
Thursday, Mar 11, 2010, Page 6
Dutch airport officials announced new security measures on Tuesday, after a Dutch investigative journalist reported smuggling a refilled liquor bottle through the heightened security checks at the airport where a young Nigerian boarded a flight for the US on Dec. 25 with explosives in his underwear.
The journalist, Alberto Stegeman, said in a report televised on Sunday that he had purchased a bottle of rum from a duty-free shop at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on Feb. 16, emptied it and refilled it with water before returning it to the store. Then he returned to the shop and “bought” the refilled bottle, which the shop sealed in a bag with a receipt, allowing him to take it through security checks and onto a plane that landed in London, where he transferred to a flight to Washington.
“This was a real big security gap, and the system failed,” Stegeman said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
The ploy worked even though Stegeman was subjected to additional checks after he was recognized by airport security; he had breached their measures in 2008, first posing as a worker for three months and then passing through security unchecked, and later using a worker’s pass to get to the hangar housing the royal family’s plane.
“When they recognized me, they had a lot of extra security guards and asked a chief to come and look at me,” he said.
“Still, they didn’t look inside the bag. They looked at the bag, checked the flight number, but that was it,” he said.
Dutch officials said on Tuesday that they had added security, while accusing Stegman of increasing the danger of flying by broadcasting and publicizing ways to get around airport security.
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