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Big jets used to move drugs into Europe
Source: Agencies |
November 16, 2010, Tuesday
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FEDERAL investigators in the United States are piecing together details of an audacious new trend in drug smuggling: South American gangs are buying old jets, stuffing them full of cocaine and flying them across the Atlantic to feed Europe's coke habit.
At least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to US indictments. One trafficker claimed he already had six aircraft flying. Another said he was managing five airplanes. Because there is no radar coverage over the ocean, big planes can cross the Atlantic virtually undetected.
"The sky's the limit," one Sierra Leone trafficker boasted to a Drug Enforcement Administration informant, according to court documents.
The new air route is remarkable because of the distances involved and the complexity of flying big jets, said Scott Decker, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, who studies smuggling methods. A trip from Venezuela to West Africa is about 5,500 kilometers.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime began warning about trans-Atlantic drug planes after November 2, 2009, when a burned-out Boeing 727 was found in the desert in Mali. Drug smugglers had flown the jet from Venezuela, unloaded it and then torched the aircraft, investigators said.
In some cases, executive jets have been used, including a Gulfstream II that landed in Guinea-Bissau in 2008 and another Gulfstream seized in 2007 as it tried to depart Venezuela for Sierra Leone.
In the last year, a flurry of arrests has begun shedding light on how the air routes work. The cases are being prosecuted in a New York federal court because some of the cocaine was °?supposed to have been sent to the US.
"The quantity of cocaine distributed and the means employed to distribute it were extraordinary," prosecutors said when reporting on one case. They warned of a plan to "spread vast quantities of cocaine throughout the world by way of cargo airplanes."
Several factors have made trans-Atlantic air routes more attractive to drug gangs, said Carlos Moreno, an expert on trafficking at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia.
Cocaine use has risen over the last decade in Europe, unlike the US, where it has remained flat, he said.?Meanwhile, better radar coverage has made it harder to move cocaine to the US.
"Going that way, especially from South America, really gets you outside the majority of the security envelope for air traffic," said Decker, the criminology professor.
At least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to US indictments. One trafficker claimed he already had six aircraft flying. Another said he was managing five airplanes. Because there is no radar coverage over the ocean, big planes can cross the Atlantic virtually undetected.
"The sky's the limit," one Sierra Leone trafficker boasted to a Drug Enforcement Administration informant, according to court documents.
The new air route is remarkable because of the distances involved and the complexity of flying big jets, said Scott Decker, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, who studies smuggling methods. A trip from Venezuela to West Africa is about 5,500 kilometers.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime began warning about trans-Atlantic drug planes after November 2, 2009, when a burned-out Boeing 727 was found in the desert in Mali. Drug smugglers had flown the jet from Venezuela, unloaded it and then torched the aircraft, investigators said.
In some cases, executive jets have been used, including a Gulfstream II that landed in Guinea-Bissau in 2008 and another Gulfstream seized in 2007 as it tried to depart Venezuela for Sierra Leone.
In the last year, a flurry of arrests has begun shedding light on how the air routes work. The cases are being prosecuted in a New York federal court because some of the cocaine was °?supposed to have been sent to the US.
"The quantity of cocaine distributed and the means employed to distribute it were extraordinary," prosecutors said when reporting on one case. They warned of a plan to "spread vast quantities of cocaine throughout the world by way of cargo airplanes."
Several factors have made trans-Atlantic air routes more attractive to drug gangs, said Carlos Moreno, an expert on trafficking at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia.
Cocaine use has risen over the last decade in Europe, unlike the US, where it has remained flat, he said.?Meanwhile, better radar coverage has made it harder to move cocaine to the US.
"Going that way, especially from South America, really gets you outside the majority of the security envelope for air traffic," said Decker, the criminology professor.
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