Saw this in the RMN article:
One of the suspects, a man who apparently had a one-way ticket to California, was pulled aside by a Transportation Security Administration agent for secondary screening at DIA in the south area of the terminal at about 11 a.m. Tuesday.
So, I guess we can assume the guy was SSSSd because of the one-way ticket, which is probably why the vigilant screener found the cash.
I've got mixed feelings, too. If the airport police had a tip-off that the bad guys were heading to the airport and got the word out with some sort of physical description, etc, OK: Using the TSA to help catch the bad guys is OK.
But, if the didn't know a thing and went what many of us believe is out of bounds for an airport "prohibited items" search, no, this wasn't OK.
From what the article described, this bad guy didn't appear to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, either.
Heck, airport security has been used for decades as convenient chokepoints to catch bad guys. But, it has been the result of good police work. If we've got zealots at checkpoints looking for cash, pot, porn, bootleg CDs, and anything else they deem criminal -- and there's enough evidence on FT to suggest that -- I wonder how many times they have BLOWN cases where the cops were tailing a guy wanting to get to the Big Cheese?