Incident: Air Antilles AT42 near Saint Martin on Mar 2nd 2011, 172k Euros "vanished"

An Air Antilles Avion de Transport Regional ATR-42-500, flight 3S-3672 from Pointe a Pitre to Saint Martin Esperance Airport (Guadeloupe), had just departed Pointe a Pitre when a passenger complained about gastroenteritis and walked into the rear toilet of the aircraft to not re-appear until after landing about 40 minutes later, when he requested to be taken care of by an ambulance.

After he had left the aircraft accompanied by medical staff, the flight attendant discovered some bank notes in the toilet, found part of the toilet had been dismantled to reach into a transport compartment, where one of the three bags containing a total of 1.2 million Euros (450,000 Euros each) had been opened and 172,000 Euros were missing from the bag. In the meantime the "patient" had suddenly recovered, departed from the ambulance and left the airport. Police were able to get hold only of a woman travelling with the "patient". The thief so far had disappeared.

On Friday (Mar 4th) police were able to trace and arrest the suspect in the Dutch part of Saint Martin. Police did not comment whether any money were found on him.