Complaints led to a sting operation against Dawn Nikole Keka
By Nelson Daranciang
Mar 16, 2011
A former Transportation Security Administration employee is facing a federal embezzling charge for allegedly stealing money from a traveler's wallet at a passenger checkpoint at the Kona airport.
TSA officials arrested Dawn Nikole Keka on Friday. She was a lead transportation security officer at Kona Airport.
Keka resigned from her job Monday, said TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.
The TSA said it conducted a sting operation targeting Keka in response to numerous allegations that she was stealing cash from Japanese travelers passing through her screening lane.
According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court yesterday, a TSA special agent posing as a Japanese tourist went through Keka's lane with 13 marked $100 bills in her wallet. The agent placed the wallet in a Hello Kitty backpack.
After the backpack went through the X-ray machine, the TSA said, Keka searched it with her back to the agent, discarded a bottle of liquid from the backpack and asked the "tourist" whether she is Japanese. The undercover agent nodded yes.
Keka then put the backpack through the X-ray machine a second time. A special agent with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General said he saw Keka walk to the middle of the screening area and lean against a wall near the X-ray machine.
When the undercover agent got the backpack, she discovered two $100 bills missing from the wallet.
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