Man arrested at JFK airport after trying to smuggle gun inside Jif peanut butter jars

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Man arrested at JFK airport after trying to smuggle gun inside Jif peanut butter jars.

A Rhode Island man found himself in a sticky situation at New York’s JFK airport — after he was busted trying to sneak a disassembled gun through security in jars of peanut butter, officials said.

Transportation Security Administration authorities said that an officer found parts of a .22 caliber semi-automatic handgun wrapped in plastic and stuffed inside of two separate jars of Jif peanut butter in the passenger’s checked baggage Thursday.

The man’s baggage triggered an alarm in the X-ray unit in Terminal 8. TSA officials notified Port Authority Police who confiscated the baggage and arrested the unidentified man.

It was unclear where the man was flying to. “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,” John Essig, TSA’s Federal Security Director for JFK Airport, said in a statement. In 2021, 5,972 firearms were detected at security checkpoints, according to the agency.

TSA said it is increasing the maximum civil penalty for a firearms violation to $14,950, which is determined on a case-by-case basis “based on the circumstances in each case.”