You may wonder what happens to those expensive checked in Rimowa bags that don’t appear to make their destination? Do they get snatched by airline employees, contractors or other passengers?
Well. Seems that there could be “gangs” operating at the airports that take expensive looking bags from conveyor belts for resale and make trips entirely for this purpose.
Here’s an excerpt from the Bangkok Post (access their piece here):
A Canadian and Chinese tourist have been arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport as they were planning to leave the country with expensive travel luggage stolen from another passengers.
Tourist and Suvarnabhumi airport police apprehended Li Tze Yueng, 35, and Lou Jieying, 22, at an airline check-in counter at the airport on Saturday as they were on their way to Hong Kong.
Mr Li Tze Yueng is a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin, while Ms Lou is a Chinese national.
Police also seized three Rimowa bags reported stolen from three passengers.
According to the Bangkok Post the arrest, followed a complaint registered by American Elsie Mullers with airport police on Friday. She said she could not find her travel bag after arriving in Bangkok on an All Nippon Airways flight and waiting for the luggage at a conveyor belt for incoming passengers.
Thailand;s Immigration Bureau acting commissioner Pol Maj Surachate Hakparn said on Sunday that records had found they had made almost 30 trips to Thailand through the airport. They travelled with carry-ons and stole baggage belonging to other travellers at conveyor belts by targeting the Rimowa brand.
Conclusion
I have always wondered does it really make a sense to check in a bag costing thousand bucks or more? It also implies that there are likely expensive items inside. Valuable indicators for any possible thieves.
Some airport require passengers to positively identify the bags with which they leave the secure area to (I guess) to deter theft like this from happening.
A friend of mine has a special carry-on that she uses for her frequent international trips. It’s a roll-aboard in good condition, except that it’s wrapped pretty much 100% in gray duct tape. To look at it, you would think it must be falling apart. Never been stolen 🙂
99.9999% bags never been stolen, does not matter how much duct tape one applies.
Helpful idea to me
Well at least in BKK the luggage collection is exclusively for airside pax. At FRA everybody can access the conveyor belts whether or not they’ve been flying. Ridiculous system…
It’s the same in AMS. You can get airside with a cheap one-way ticket, then go to the luggage carousels and walk out with expensive luggage. I guess the main reason this crime isn’t more common is because of all the cameras present at airports, which is also how these guys got caught.
Airports which actually check bag tags are extremely rare. It’s a good reason to not linger on the way to immigration and then baggage claim. However at an airport like BKK, the queue for immigration is often times long and bags come out before you can clear. That’s certainly the exception though rather than the rule, in most airports you can easily beat your luggage to the carousel.
Know what your getting into with Tumi!!!
Itypically travel with two standard size Tumi carry on bags. These bags are on the higher end of Tumi and they look it. One was $1,295 and the other was $1,499. If for some reason I do check either of these bags they ALWAYS end up with the TSA inspection sticker on the bag tag alerting me that they’ve been opened. The more expensive bag doesn’t have zippers and uses metal latches to close it. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been paged at the gate because TSA couldn’t figure out how to re close the bag. Every time I’ve asked why it was opened to begin with I’ve been given the same “it was random” line which is total BS. I travel with my brother often who uses a much less expensive Samsonite bag that has never once been opened. Looking back I wish I had purchased less expensive bags but I needed the quality. It’s the TSA employees more than fellow passengers we need to worry about when it comes stealing. TSA clearly can spot an expensive bag and absolutely has the opportunity to open them at will and in some cases take what they want. In my opinion it’s the physical bag they target and has nothing to do with what kind of priority tag it’s labelled with.