Cost of Keeping Airport Queues Short During Olympics - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
Immigration officers at London’s Heathrow Airport are so swamped with travelers coming through to watch or participate in the Olympic Games, that they’ve had to let suspected drug smugglers through security to keep the traffic jams to a minimum, according to a report by the British Broadcasting Company. The traffic flow is so heavy, that they have even brought in 500 previous staff members.
“We have actually ceased doing anti-smuggling operations at the moment, even though they won't say they have," a senior airport official at Heathrow told The Observer.
The lapse in security also exposes additional dangers. An anonymous letter from an airport immigration officer claims that there were six separate incidents in the weeks preceding the Olympics where border staff did not properly detain suspected terrorist operatives. Months before the Olympic Games, Heathrow and other British airports were under scrutiny because of the long waiting lines for customs, immigration and other security checks. They wanted to make sure that this was not such an issue for all of the people expected to be coming to London for the Olympics.
