NEWARK (1010 WINS) – A Mississippi man’s efforts to conceal a gun at Newark Airport—by hiding its disassembled parts in a boot and a LEGO box set—has made the TSA’s “Top 10 List” for 2024.
The TSA said Tuesday that the Oct. 16 discovery landed at number 8 on its list of the “most unusual items detected at airport security checkpoints” last year.
According to the agency, TSA officers weren’t outsmarted by the “disassembled gun parts artfully concealed in a boot and a LEGO box.”
The fully disassembled 9mm firearm was discovered in a carry-on bag at a checkpoint at Terminal A.
The gun frame was jammed in the bottom of a boot, below a sock that had been stuffed behind it to help conceal it, the agency said.
The gun’s slide, spring and gun magazine—loaded with 12 bullets—were allegedly mixed among the plastic pieces of a Black Panther LEGO set.
TSA alerted Port Authority Police, who confiscated the items and arrested the man, who was heading to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Thomas Carter, TSA’s federal security director for New Jersey, said it was clear this was no accident on the part of the flier.
“This is an example of someone who was intentionally attempting to carry a gun onto a flight,” Carter said. “He kept changing his story, first telling us that it was a toy gun and then claiming that it belonged to his brother. Regardless of his claims, what I can tell you is that it was a fully disassembled firearm that he could easily have assembled and used on a plane.”
The find was the only one from a New York City area airport to make the 2024 top 10 list. The number 1 discovery was a gun hidden inside a baby stroller at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.