Passenger tracks missing luggage to home of airport store worker, who is now charged with felony theft
A Florida man is facing a felony grand theft charge in Broward County after a plucky airline passenger scheduled to fly out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in March tracked her stolen luggage to the man’s home, according to the probable cause affidavit in the case.
Junior Geneus Bazile, 29, of Fort Lauderdale has been charged with grand theft in the third degree.
The victim was slated to leave the airport on a Spirit Airlines flight the evening of March 3, but the airline canceled the flight and told all passengers they could retrieve their checked luggage on the baggage belt at Terminal 4, the affidavit said.
Paola Garcia told CNN affiliate WPLG in Miami that she usually takes her suitcase onboard, but this time, she was told she had to check it. Garcia said waited at least two hours for her pink roller bag, which contained an Apple MacBook, Apple iPad, Apple Watch, jewelry, high-end woman’s clothing and toiletries. It never came out on the luggage belt.
In her WPLG interview, Garcia said that Spirit Airlines told her that her luggage had been sent to her house. The luggage never came. But Garcia explored another avenue with her own electronic tracker.
Garcia, not named in the affidavit, later pinged the electronic items inside the bag to try and locate them, and the ping showed them at an address in Fort Lauderdale, the affidavit said.
Tracking down her luggage
She then went to retrieve her things from the address, but she couldn’t contact anyone inside the home, the affidavit said. While at the house, she took video and still pictures, where she saw “several pieces of luggage in the front of the home,” none of which were her own, the affidavit said.
Garcia told WPLG that she dialed 911. “The first thing I remember the police told me is: ‘What are you doing here? This is so dangerous for you to be here.’ “
When a detective with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office searched the address within the airport’s employee databases, he found that Bazile reportedly lived at the address.
Bazile was listed as working at a Paradies Lagardère Travel Retail store at the airport and was working on the day of the theft, according to the affidavit.
The store’s loss prevention manager was contacted, and he provided the detective with internal CCTV footage from the day of the incident, which allegedly showed Bazile entering the store’s storage room with a pink shell roller bag, matching the description of the stolen bag, and rummaging through the luggage, the affidavit said. He then appeared to take the MacBook and other smaller items out of the luggage and put them in other bags.
A WPLG video shows pictures of a man holding a plastic bag containing a pink suitcase and holding a laptop.
“Paradies Lagardère takes this matter very seriously. Immediately upon learning of the incident, this employee was terminated. As this is an ongoing police matter, we have cooperated with the investigation and recommend reaching out to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for more information,” the company told CNN on Wednesday afternoon.
After being charged with grand theft in the third degree, Belize pleaded not guilty and posted $30,000 bond. His next court date is scheduled for August 23, court records show.
CNN has reached out to Bazile and his public defender for comment.
In a statement, Spirit Airlines told CNN that even though they are “not aware of any evidence that any Spirit employee was involved,” the airline issued a reimbursement check to the woman whose luggage was stolen, “as a courtesy.”
CNN’s Melissa Alonso contributed to this report.
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