Nearly 100 arrested in security raids at Washington-area airports

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Authorities arrested close to 100 workers yesterday at airports serving the nation's capital on charges they lied to obtain security badges that gave them broad access to sensitive areas.

Those arrested included construction workers, janitors, food workers and at least two baggage screeners.

Federal officials said that by day's end, or perhaps today, they expected to have arrested at least 138 employees in a sweep called ''Fly Trap'' at Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

At least one employee arrested already had been deported from the United States but illegally returned and obtained an airport job, authorities said. They said those arrested included at least one baggage screener each at Reagan and Dulles airports.

Ten other arrests — also on charges of immigration violations and falsified employment applications — occurred at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Seven people there had failed to disclose prior felony convictions, prosecutors said.

Reagan National airport is closest to the Pentagon, struck Sept. 11 by American Airlines Flight 77, which took off from Dulles with five hijackers aboard. That crash killed 189 people on the plane and inside the military headquarters building in Washington's Virginia suburbs.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the arrests, which followed sealed indictments issued last week by a federal grand jury, ''should be a wake-up call for every airport in America.'' People arrested face up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000, and immigrants who were caught without proper documentation could be deported.

''Let me be clear,'' Ashcroft said. ''There will be zero tolerance of security breaches at our nation's airports.''