I want to mention a LHR incident I went through last year.
I was waiting for my flight back home and went to the parking lot at the middle of the airport. I was the only one up there and was hanging out for around an hour. I did have a camera on me, but wasn’t taking pics. A guy dressed in street clothes approached and started addressing me. He obviously wasn’t British from his accent and I also noticed he had an El Al employee ID around his neck. He started demanding I show my passport. I asked if he was a police officer. He didn’t answer. He asked for my passport again. I said that unless he was a cop, I couldn’t show him, but I showed him my plane ticket. I told him my plane leaves in a few hours and I’m waiting. He said I had to leave immediately. I asked again if he was a cop and he wouldn’t answer. I said I’ll leave and left.
As soon as I got back to the terminal, I went to the information booth and reported that an El Al employee was on the parking lot impersonating an officer. Within five minutes, two uniformed LHR cops came down and asked for a description. The cops were extremely professional and polite. I gave them a run-down of what happened and said he seemed to work for El Al because of his ID. The cops told me that this wasn’t the first time something like this happened. They said that EL Al employs people called “spotters” who canvass the parking lots and other areas around the times El Al flights are supposed to take-off and land. They have NO legal authority in the UK. In fact, they’re not even supposed to approach people or speak to them and the absolute most they can do is report something to the police as they have radios. And they definitely don’t have any special security arrangement with the UK. The cops told me they’d look into this and that was that.
Anyone in Europe come across these guys before? And are they in any of the US airports? If they are here, what rights do they have?
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