A doubling of crime at airports in two years is being partly blamed on passengers travelling with banned items like CS spray, knives and air rifles.
A total of 5,234 crimes at or close to airports in England and Wales were reported by police in 2017, compared with 2,432 in 2015.
Vehicle crime and weapons are among the types of crime to have increased.
Police said they confiscated small weapons from people whose own countries legally allow possession.
Stansted emerged as the airport with the largest number of overall crimes recorded on or near the premises, with 1,870 in 2017 and 721 in the first five months of 2018, the BBC reported.
There were a total of 890 possession of weapons offences last year, and 434 in the first three months of 2018. This compares with 226 in the whole of 2015.
Stansted accounted for the majority of these, with 718 crimes in 2017.
The airport also had the largest number of overall crimes, although it is the fourth busiest airport in the UK in terms of passenger traffic.
The airport referred BBC requests for comment to Essex Police, who explained that the weapons offences were predominantly as a result of “visitors to the UK from countries where possession of these articles is not usually an offence”.
A spokesman for the force said it “remains one of the safest airports in the UK”.
“Earlier this year, all police forces had to adhere to a change in the way it recorded the seizure of CS sprays, small knives, air soft weapons and air rifles under the National Crime Recording Standards,” he added.
Most cases were dealt with by community resolution, which means they do not go before a court and do not result in a criminal record.
“There are rare situations where UK passengers are stopped at security checks in possession of these same weapons. They are detained by our officers and are either fined or put before a court,” the spokesman added.
Essex Police has also run “highly visible yet unpredictable police deployments involving a police dogs, armed officers and CCTV teams” at Stansted since November 2016.
Birmingham airport saw the most vehicle crimes with 55 incidents between January and May 2018, more than double the total recorded in 2017.
An airport spokeswoman said reports categorised as “on or near airport vicinity” or “on or near Airport Way” included “areas that are outside the boundaries of Birmingham airport car parks”.
“Birmingham airport and its car park operator NCP had ten incidents reported out of 800,000 transactions during the months January to March 2018,” she added.
“NCP engages with all relevant law enforcement agencies to mitigate the risk of vehicle crime and the team conduct regular patrols in the car parks.”