'Sky's the limit': Drug smugglers buy cargo jets

[Blue_Tires]

Source: MSNBC

NEW YORK — Federal investigators 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 growing coke habit.

At least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to U.S. 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 3,400 miles — about triple the distance to Florida.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime began warning about trans-Atlantic drug planes after Nov. 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.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40194116/ns/world_news-americas

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I've read stories about ancient 727/737s being used for this...A lot of uncontrolled airspace in continental Africa...

[CurtEastPoint]

1. What? "...no radar coverage over the ocean..." How can this be if...

passenger planes criscross the Atlantic and Pacific daily? Is this true? Pilots??

[zipplewrath]

5. True

Radar can't "see" over the horizon. You're "on your own" when you're out there. There are still comminications available, and they fly very regular "patterns" so they know where to look for each other.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Of course it's true, and I'm no pilot. Radar is "line-of-sight"

and both the Atlantic and the Pacific are bloody big lakes.

http://tscm.com/rdr-hori.pdf

There is radio communication and satellite communication over much of the worlds oceans but RADAR systems do not cover every square inch of the planet.

Not by a long shot.

BTW, the article in the OP suggests the planes are flying across the Southern Atlantic anyway. The overwhelming majority of transatlantic flights cross the North Atlantic.

[Blue_Tires]

10. pilots up to no good can also turn off their transponder

[sofa king]

13. There are also huge "holes" where there is little to no traffic.

Most passenger and cargo flights fly winding transatlantic flight patterns that keep the planes within a few hundred miles of land most of the time. But a plane flying illegally and one way can chart any path it chooses across the Atlantic, probably being sure to avoid the Cape Verde islands and the Saint Peter and Saint Paul archipelago.

[ManiacJoe]

16. Any of the OTH-B radars still running?

I know that the Over The Horizon Backscatter system in Maine was shutdown years ago.

[midnight armadillo]

22. Weren't those for nuke detection?

I thought those looked for sub launched ballistic missiles.

[ManiacJoe]

31. Might have been possible.

The more common use for the one in Maine was tracking all inbound flights looking for airplanes that were off schedule or out of position. The Greenland to Cuba coverage was kinda cool.

[Roma]

2. Why doesn't Europe just legalize the drugs and put an end to

this wasteful war on drugs?

[ProudDad]

20. Some countries in Europe already have

The Netherlands and Portugal come immediately to mind...

And their crime rates plummeted and what drug "problem" there is is a Public health issue now...

Why doesn't the USAmerikan Empire, the world's #1 customer, decriminalize?

(Trick question - Answer: 'cause it would hurt the GDP)

[tridim]

3. 40 years, trillions of dollars, and not a dent made in the problem.

Obviously we need to give the drug warriors more money.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. I wonder how many saudis are flying heroin out of Afghanistan and

environs.

[DCKit]

6. Exactly. One old triangle was slaves, cotton and spices.

Then again, they weren't carrying anything so lucrative that they could afford to burn their ships after every haul.

[XemaSab]

8. I heard it was slaves, cotton, and rum

:(

At any rate, the war on drugs is a total failure. :(

[DCKit]

9. Yeah, thirty years out of high school. But you get the idea.

Regardless, the "War on Drugs" is win/win for those involved and collecting the spoils from either or both ends. Disaster capitalism at it's finest.

[cliffordu]

12. Rum is s spice, ain't it??

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. More typically, the triangle was manufactured goods, slaves and sugar

Manufactured goods from Britain (or other European countries) taken to Africa, where they are traded for slaves; slaves taken to the Americas where they are sold; and then buy a cargo to take back to Europe - sugar being the most likely one, but tobacco and cotton were major ones too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/hist/abolition/?section=tri_trade&page=map

[sofa king]

14. They'd probably have to ask permission from the CIA first.

But they would probably also get it.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

25. Drug traffikers in Afghanistan have actually become very innovative,

A UN narcotics official told me that drug traffickers have mastered faking rendition flights to limit scrutiny. They copy tail numbers, call signs, flight plans - the works. Business jet flying from Afghanistan to East Africa or the Middle East. Everyone has had it beat into them to look the other way.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. time to buy stock in Boeing?

[Terry in Austin]

15. A new twist on the old "Free Mexican Air Force"

Used to be, smugglers would step up to DC-3's from their "Pot Pipers" when business was good.

Ah, progress!

:evilgrin:

[Brother Buzz]

17. So, is it cheaper or just plain easier to trash the plane than deadhead it back for another load?

:shrug:

[Blue_Tires]

18. i guess sometimes they are just one-way flights

that 727 in the story was probably 35+ years old, dangerously fatigued and in a minimally airworthy condition...Best to strip off any valuables (the only parts worth anything are the avionics and possibly the engines) and just torch the rest...

If any investigators found a serial number, it would be fun to trace that airframe's service life to its undignified end

In a sort-of related story, the Ben Padilla case has been the stuff of speculative lore:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N844AA#Ben_Charles_Padilla

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. How the hell does one person steal a 727? (three man cockpit)

It isn't like you can just jump back and forth between the pilot seat and flight engineers console.

[Blue_Tires]

27. most of the stories and rumors i've read indicate he had a second person with him

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/24/Worldandnation/Out_of_Africa__into_t.shtml

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/3201872/

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

24. I suspect these landings are controlled crashes in remote clearings

Many airports in Africa have extremely harsh customs inspections looking for weapons being smuggled, tariff enforcement and opportunities to solicit bribes.

[FLPanhandle]

19. Takes some serious balls to fly a minimally flight worthy crapped out plane across the Atlantic

Then land who knows where under whatever conditions may exist. They certainly aren't calling air traffic control and diverting to a major airport.

[sarcasmo]

21. The CIA has done this for years.

[Crowman1979]

28. +1000

Damn right!

[conspirator]

29. +1 n/t

[Crowman1979]

30. Plus I doubt that any major cartel would be a able to obtain that much cash to buy a jumbo jet.