Crime

Smooth criminal? Rhode Island man arrested after TSA finds gun parts in peanut butter jars

The gun’s magazine was loaded with bullets, the agency said.

December 27, 2022

1 minute to read

In what could be described as a jarring discovery, the TSA says its agents found parts of a disassembled handgun hidden inside containers of peanut butter, and a Rhode Island man is now in a legal jam.

According to a TSA release, a checked bag triggered an alarm in a terminal X-ray unit at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Dec. 22, leading to the discovery of the peanut butter jars and the gun parts hidden inside them. The gun’s magazine was loaded with bullets, the agency said.

TSA officials notified the Port Authority Police, who confiscated the items, tracked down the traveler in the terminal, and arrested him, the TSA said. The suspect has not been identified, but is listed as being from Rhode Island, according to the TSA.

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“The gun parts were artfully concealed in two smooth creamy jars of peanut butter, but there was certainly nothing smooth about the way the man went about trying to smuggle his gun,” said John Essig, TSA’s Federal Security Director for JFK Airport.

According to the agency, “civil penalties for attempting to bring undeclared weapons onto a flight can stretch into thousands of dollars, depending on mitigating circumstances.”