OAKLAND — A former Southwest Airlines employee was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison this week for his role in a methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking ring.
Defendant Chris Cross, who accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors last year, was sentenced to 90 months in prison and three years supervised release. He was indicted along with seven others in 2016, two years after the drug ring came to an abrupt end due to a conspirator’s drunken state.
Federal prosecutors say Cross used his status as a Southwest employee of 22 years to help sneak drug couriers’ packages around TSA security checkpoints. Authorities say between 2011 and 2014, the group shipped meth and cocaine on flights from California to Hawaii more than 36 times.
The group was successful until April 2014, when one of the couriers became intoxicated and was denied entry to her flight to Hawaii. During a search, authorities found three pounds of meth and two pounds of cocaine, and arrested her. She later cooperated with law enforcement, according to court records.
The leader of the ring, Jeremy Luckett, 38, of Oakland, was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison last October.