Southwest employee sentenced for stealing firearms from passengers’ luggage

A former Southwest Airlines employee has been sentenced to six months behind bars after he pleaded guilty to possessing stolen firearms from the luggage of passengers while working as a baggage handler, according to a statement by the Department of Justice in Missouri.

Police had seized a firearm from Mark Hunter, of St. Louis, in September of 2020. 

A passenger had reported his pistol missing from his baggage and reported it while federal agents tracked down the dates of other missing firearm thefts and Southwest’s schedules.

“Records indicated that Hunter was working and had access to baggage from which other guns had been reported stolen,” the Department of Justice wrote. 

Hunter was interrogated by federal employees and confessed to the theft of five firearms from the checked luggage he handled while working at the St. Louis airport.

The Department of Justice put out a statement of Hunter’s six-month sentence, including three years of probation, following an investigation carried out by the Manchester Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration.