Moniteveti Katoa used his experience working at DFW International Airport to smuggle what he thought was cocaine onto flights headed for cities nationwide.
He also recruited his wife, who worked the ticket counter for American Airlines, in the scheme.
And he was prepared to smuggle explosives through security and onto airplanes in exchange for money, prosecutors said Thursday.
Katoa bragged a lot about his criminal past, then he negotiated the deals. But his contacts turned out to be federal agents.
A leader in the local Tongan community who worked for an aviation company at the airport, Katoa was sentenced Thursday to 15 years and eight months in federal prison for his part in the drug-distribution network.
The defendants managed to get the fake drugs, which were provided by undercover police, onto commercial flights traveling from Dallas to Las Vegas; Newark, N.J.; Phoenix; Chicago; Wichita, Kan.; and San Francisco.
U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle agreed with prosecutors that Katoa, 53, was a leader of the drug plot, which was broken up in July 2015 when he was arrested along with 45 others, mostly from Dallas and Fort Worth, in an undercover sting.
Three others used their positions at the airport — or contacted people who worked there — to bypass security in order to transport what they thought was cocaine.
The defendants said they had relatives who worked in baggage handling, security and other DFW Airport jobs who could help, along with family members in other countries such as Tonga and New Zealand. Among those who have already been convicted are Katoa’s cousin and nephew.
His wife, Janelle Isaacs, 42, is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
“We’re talking about our airport” and someone willing to use it for “dangerous activities,” Boyle said before sentencing him.
The new information about explosive devices was revealed by an FBI agent during the sentencing hearing. Prosecutors introduced the evidence to support their request for a stiff sentence.
“He bragged that he could fly a bomb wherever he chose to,” FBI Agent Ray Harrison testified.
Agents decided to test that resolve.
In December 2014, Katoa told undercover officers he would be willing to fly plastic explosives on a plane from DFW Airport and he negotiated a $4,000 fee for the job.
Katoa apologized to the judge, saying he was sorry for what he did and that “I dishonored my family.”
“I hurt a lot of people that was depending on me,” he said.
Security hole
Katoa and others talked about exploiting a major hole in DFW Airport security by using employees, and they said it was a good thing terrorists didn’t know about it, Harrison said.
Katoa’s cousin, a baggage handler, told undercover officers that he knew when the Transportation Security Administration was conducting random checks of employees’ bags before they went to their work areas because a family member who worked in security would alert him.
Katoa said that he was fired from his airport job in 2012 for drug use but that he still had access to the airport and “extensive knowledge of airport procedures,” court records said. He worked for an aviation company at DFW.
In addition, Katoa said he had four cousins who worked at Federal Express who were moving marijuana. And he said he had family in Tonga, Hawaii and New Zealand who could help distribute methamphetamine and cocaine.
Katoa had his wife book flights for him that didn’t have federal agents on board. She was also able to bypass security by using her employee credentials to smuggle drugs into the gate area.
Katoa knew where the airport security cameras were, meaning his wife could hand him the drugs in a backpack without detection.
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Leal said that Katoa’s wife could have gotten him discounted or free airline tickets due to her job and that the couple could have flown all over the world together. Instead, Katoa got greedy and selfish and decided to drag his wife into the illegal plot.
“In the end, that’s what it boiled down to,” Leal said. “It’s ‘me before mankind.’ … He doesn’t care about the safety of anybody.”
Boyle said Katoa is not like the typical defendant involved in a large drug conspiracy. She said he is a leader in his community to whom people looked up.
“I don’t know what happened to you,” the judge said.
Katoa’s attorney, Christopher Lewis, called his client an “opportunist” who was not a ringleader and who mostly bragged and exaggerated about what he could do.
“He was trying to sell himself,” Lewis said.
Cartel bodyguards
The case got started in 2011 when undercover federal officers investigating Mexican drug cartels learned about Tongan men whom the cartels hired as bodyguards, said Harrison, the FBI agent.
One of the bodyguards, Funaki Falahola, told an undercover officer in spring 2013 that he and a cousin and other family members could help transport cocaine on American Airlines and United Airlines flights from Dallas to cities across the U.S.
“Falahola stated that it would be no problem to transport to the other locations because they have contacts there,” a federal complaint said. “Falahola said the highest profit on drugs would be to transport them to Hawaii for sale.”
Falahola said methamphetamine and cocaine would sell for a higher price in Hawaii. Falahola told officers that Katoa had worked for American Airlines for 25 years. Falahola is scheduled to be sentenced in October.
Katoa, who is Falahola’s uncle, told one of the undercover officers that he could carry drugs on his body to their destination, in part by placing his name on the employee flight list instead of the passenger manifest, thereby skirting TSA scrutiny.
Katoa said that before September 2011, he had once moved 100 kilograms of cocaine by commercial aircraft.
According to the original federal complaint in the case, Katoa told the undercover officer that his younger brother earned between $280,000 and $480,000 a week transporting drugs to Hawaii before he was arrested and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He said his older brother got eight years in prison after being arrested in New Zealand with $900,000 worth of cocaine.
Katoa also told an undercover officer that he had several ways to smuggle illegal drugs and that he had been “flying several times a month to observe how TSA conducts its security checks in various cities,” court documents said. He also said he had been “waiting for the opportunity to transport illegal drugs on American Airlines.”
In one case in summer 2013, undercover officers gave Falahola a backpack that they said contained 4 kilograms of cocaine. He and Katoa then carried the package on an American Airlines flight to Las Vegas and gave it to another undercover officer for a $9,000 fee, the indictment said.
Fort Worth-based American, which uses DFW Airport as its main hub, issued a statement last year saying it was taking the matter seriously and had been cooperating with authorities. It said the company’s top priority is “the safety and security of our customers and employees.”
