Passenger baggage at Luton airport is now safer: after two of the airport’s cleaners were arrested for pilfering luggage. Abul Hussain and Anthony Currant were caught on hidden camera’s taking items from bags during a police sting operation in February. The pair were filmed opening bags before they got to the main carousel in the baggage retrievals hall.

According to Bedfordshire Police, Hussein, a 30-year-old from Claremont Road, Luton and Currant, a 65-year-old cleaner from Bolingbroke Road in the same town, each admitted to six counts of theft. Both have been handed a custodial sentence by Luton Crown Court.

Hidden cameras were used to catch both men as they went through passengers’ luggage in a closed off room through which bags have to travel before being collected by their owners, according to a spokesman.

Police claim that since the pair had been arrested, incidences of pilfering at Luton Airport have dropped by an average of 77 per cent. London Luton Airport Safer Neighbourhood Team’s Sergeant Steve Farrer, hopes that the prison sentences received by both former cleaners would send out a clear message deterring other thieves. He added that the safeguard of passengers’ belongings was something that Luton Airport took very seriously indeed.

Sergeant Farrer advised all those travelling through the airport to make sure that their luggage was securely locked, if possible, and that all items of particular value should be kept in a passenger’s hand baggage. Farrer pointed out that Luton served 700,000 passengers a month and that reports of pilfering were made, on average, around seven times a month.