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JFK crim­e spike – Metro US

JFK crim­e spike

Criminals are crawling all over John F. Kennedy airport, causing a 30 percent uptick in larcenies this year.

The New York Post reports that there have been 299 complaints so far this year, dozens more than during the same time period in 2010.

Only 28 of the complaints have lead to an arrest, which means just 9 percent of reported thefts from baggage claims and by baggage handlers are pursued.

“The bosses are constantly telling us to downgrade grand larcenies to petit larcenies when a stolen item is more than a year old,” a source said to the Post. “They want us to take into account depreciation.”

If thefts are classified as petit larcenies rather than grand larcenies, they need not be reported to the FBI.

Still, some may say that the disparity between this year and the last is a result of more honest reporting of the crimes.

Last year, Port Authority managers were lambasted for misreporting larcenies as “lost property” cases.

More than 775 “lost property” reports were filed in the first half of 2010 and there were only 518 “lost property” cases filed during the first half of 2011, numbers that could make up for the difference between larceny reports year to year.