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View Full Version : Major drug bust at AILA



NewsWhore
05-03-2011, 03:20 PM
On Sunday officers from the Specialized Airport Security Corps (CESA), in coordination with agents from the National Drug Control Department (DNCD), seized 54.7 kilograms of cocaine concealed in boxes of vegetables that were to be shipped to New York City. During the last four months, the DNCD and the CESA have seized 283 kilos of cocaine, including this Sunday's haul in the cargo area of the airport. The authorities found 55 packets of drugs in 27 cardboard boxes of peppers wrapped in paper.

According to the authorities at the AILA terminal, the drugs were going to be shipped to New York on American Airlines flight # 582. During the operation, agents from the DNCD arrested Domingo Piniera, the manager of the export company. The shipment of the stash of 54.7 kilos of cocaine was being made by the Gomez Cruz CxA Company, and was consigned to a company called Bread Fruit LLC.

There have been arrests in some of the recent cases, but others have escaped the authorities, getting past more than seven checkpoints between the ramp to the entrance to the airport. In one case a suspect was allowed to leave to fetch the key to a bag that had been found to have 15 kilos of cocaine inside, and he took advantage of the situation and fled, while another, upon being discovered when he left the drugs near a plane, took off in such a hurry that he left his Airport ID card on the scene, as reported in Diario Libre.

The newspaper reports that drug traffickers have developed new ways of sending drugs overseas this year, and they now use employees of fuel companies, cleaning crews, freight handlers, and lately drugs have been found in garbage cans, in fueling trucks, abandoned packages and in warehouses.

The Airport Department has asked the DNCD chief to carry out a thorough investigation into the 54.7 kilograms of cocaine found on Sunday, since this is a million dollar consignment that drug traffickers are not going to risk unless they have contacts at the airport.

Carlos Cota Lama, the Airport Department delegate at the nation's airports, stated that by express order of Airport Department director Aristides Fernandez Zucco, the investigations into this case should reach the proper conclusions since this was no random act. He said that this amount of drugs could not enter the warehouses or leave the country without help from someone. Therefore, he reiterated, they have to take the investigation to the bitter end in this case.

DNCD president Major General Rolando Rosado Mateo told Diario Libre that his intelligence section had been tracking these drugs for some time. The shipment in question was detected inside the merchandise of a company whose owner collaborated with the DNCD authorities in order to arrest the members of the network and allow the seizure of the cocaine shipment. Rosado Mateo said that several people are under arrest in connection with the case and they are investigating further to establish any other connections. He later reported that two company employees were under detention and are being investigated.

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