TSA: Woman arrested after luggage found to contain guns, ammo, pot

A woman traveling to Barbados on a Canadian passport was arrested at Kennedy Airport after Transportation Security Administration officers found two disassembled handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and 33 pounds of marijuana concealed in her luggage, authorities said Monday.

Nyesha McPherson, 24, of Scarborough, Ontario, was arrested in Terminal 5 at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, port officials said.

Port Authority spokesman Joseph Pentangelo said the woman was scheduled to travel on a JetBlue flight and had not arrived on a connecting flight. The incident was uncovered when TSA officers pulled the woman's bags off a conveyor and determined they were unusually heavy, he said.

Suspicious TSA officers then opened two pieces of checked baggage and found what was described as being "jam-packed with cans and boxes for baby wipes, coffee, floor-dusting sheets, lemonade mix, iced tea mix" -- and a box of cat litter and a box of laundry tablets.

"But," the TSA said in a statement Monday, "none of those boxes or cans contained the products on the labels."

Instead, agents found two disassembled .40-caliber handguns, 350 rounds of ammunition, four magazines to load bullets into the handguns and 58 "bricks" of marijuana -- a total of 33 pounds of pot, officials said.

All the items, the TSA said, were "artfully concealed in the boxes, tubs and cans."

McPherson was charged with first-degree criminal possession of marijuana, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm, possession of high-capacity magazines and possession of ammunition.