http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFFDf-25zo

(YouTube: breakingnews ofday)

POLICE IN ITALY last week arrested 29 baggage handlers from two Italian airports after catching them on video raiding passengers’ luggage.

The staff were caught stealing contents from the bags of travelling passengers through secret police filming, using cameras installed in the cargo holds of Alitalia aircraft.

In some cases the staff can be seen slamming suitcases off the walls of the plane trying to break them open, so that the contents inside can be revealed.

The staff worked at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport and at the airport at Lamezia Terme in the south of the country.

A spokesman for the latter airport’s police force said law enforcement agencies had started planting cameras in aircraft themselves, after being stumped by the routine reporting of stolen items from luggage.

They eventually theorised that the luggage compartment of a plane itself was the only place where a baggage handler would expect total secrecy while opening a passenger’s bags.