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It's quite possible and likely that the two women were just opportunistic thieves, or at least the one who took the laptop was. Opportunitistic theft is not at

• Cyph0n 10y ago
  If they can pull off an improvised act like that on such short notice, they are professional con artists. So why are they stealing laptops in an airport? They wouldn't: high risk, low reward. The way I see it, it was simply an error on the part of the TSA, as discussed countless times in other comments.
  • soylentcola 10y ago
    Yeah, I can't rule out some more elaborate con but at least from the story as it's told here, it sounds like all of these folks were in a hurry, the author wasn't paying attention and didn't make sure he had his laptop before moving on, TSA handed it to the wrong person, and that person thought "ooh, score!" Or maybe she didn't realize for a while and by that point, a combination of laziness and desire to keep this shiny, luxury model computer that had accidentally ended up in her possession led her to just hold onto it. I think the number of people who will decide to keep something they find (dropped wallet, misplaced laptop, etc) is much higher than the number who would actively go out of their way to steal something. The end result is the same but I think psychologically, it takes effort to go out and steal whereas it takes effort to track down an owner while keeping a found item just requires apathy and/or greed.