A brave passenger due to leave Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in March found the man’s house and tracked her stolen luggage there, according to the probable cause affidavit in the case. The man is now being charged with felony grand theft in Broward County.
He is 29 years old and from Fort Lauderdale. He is charged with big theft in the third degree.
According to the statement, the victim was supposed to leave the airport on a Spirit Airlines flight on March 3 evening. However, the flight was canceled, and all passengers were told they could get their checked luggage from the baggage belt at Terminal 4.
Paula Garcia told CNN station WPLG in Miami that she usually brings her suitcase on board with her, but she was told she had to check it this time. Garcia said she had to wait at least two hours for her pink roller bag, which held an Apple MacBook, an Apple iPad, an Apple Watch, jewelry, expensive clothes for women, and toiletries. It didn’t come off the bag belt.
As she talked on WPLG, Garcia said that Spirit Airlines told her that her bags had been sent to her house. The bags never showed up. But Garcia went down a different path with her own computer tracker.
Later, Garcia, who isn’t named in the affidavit, ping-ed the electronics inside the bag to try to find them. The ping-ed electronics were found at a Fort Lauderdale address, the affidavit said.
Then she went to the address to get her things, but the statement said she couldn’t get in touch with anyone there. The statement said that while she was at the house, she took pictures and videos and saw “several pieces of luggage in the front of the home,” but none of them were hers.
WPLG heard Garcia say that she called 911. “The first thing I remember the police asking me was, ‘What are you doing here?'” It’s very dangerous for you to be here.
A detective from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office looked up the address in the airport’s employee files and found that Bazile was said to have lived there.
In the statement, Bazile was named as working at a Paradies Lagardère Travel Retail store at the airport. He was there on the day of the theft.
The loss prevention manager of the store was contacted, and he gave the detective internal CCTV footage from the day of the crime. The footage allegedly showed Bazile entering the store’s storage room with a pink shell roller bag that matched the description of the stolen bag and going through the bags, according to the affidavit. After that, it looked like he took the MacBook and some other smaller things out of the bag and put them in another bag.
Pictures from a WPLG video show a man with a laptop and a plastic bag that holds a pink suitcase.
It is very important to Paradies Lagardère that this gets fixed. As soon as the company learned about what happened, this employee was fired. “Because this is still being investigated by the police, we have helped with the investigation and encourage you to contact the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for more information,” the company told CNN on Wednesday afternoon.
Belize was charged with big theft in the third degree. He pleaded not guilty and put up a $30,000 bond. Court records show that his next court date is set for August 23.
