U.S. federal agents say they raided Puerto Rico’s international airport and other areas early, arresting at least 33 people suspected of smuggling millions of dollars’ worth of drugs aboard commercial flights. Click below to read the rest of the story.

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Three other suspects were arrested in the U.S.: two workers at Miami’s international airport and another at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The suspects were members of two Puerto Rico-based drug trafficking organizations that would work with each other, and one of them was run by a woman, officials said.

“We have dismantled the two most significant drug operations at the airport,” said Pedro Janer, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s Caribbean division.

The suspects are accused of helping move thousands of pounds (kilograms) of cocaine and several pounds (kilograms) of heroin from Puerto Rico to several U.S. cities including Miami and Newark, New Jersey, from 1999 to 2009, according to the DEA.

At least 45 arrest warrants were issued in the combined operations, 12 of them targeting current or former employees of American Airlines, according to the DEA. Several other warrants were issued for workers at Ground Motive Dependable, a company that provides baggage handling services for the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan.

DEA agents also sought to arrest one employee with Cape Air and a government worker with Puerto Rico’s Port Authority.

Janer said the workers would enter the airport with drugs in their bags, on themselves or in their cars and then hand it over to someone else inside airport bathrooms once they cleared security.

DN