Plane overloaded with coke crashes, greedy smugglers arrested

Airplane overloaded with coke crashes, greedy smugglers arrested.



An airplane overloaded with heavy bags of cocaine crashed as it took off from a clandestine airstrip on a south Pacific island this week, revealing an Italian Mafia syndicate based in Australia. The Mob Reporter here with a crazy story of a mystery plane, a terribly inconvenient crash and a desperate attempt to hide a half ton of cocaine in the jungle. This audacious story starts when a twin-engine Cessna departed a small town in Australia called Mareeba on July 26, 2020, that was Sunday morning. It’s destination: Papua New Guinea, an island in the south Pacific, north of Australia. The country is known as the most rural state in the world and has dense rain forests and active volcanoes. It was a suspicious flight from the start. It illegally flew below 3,000 feet to avoid radar detection as it crossed the ocean on a flight that would normally take about an hour and a half. Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary — the country’s police force — said the pilot was helped by several islanders to fill the plane with bags of cocaine bricks. In the afternoon of same day, the plane tried to take off from a remote airstrip north of the capitol, Port Moresby, but crashed. Investigators say local members of the syndicate rushed to help the pilot retrieve the drugs and lug them into the jungle to hide them. When authorities reached the site, the plane was empty and the pilot unaccounted for.




The search for the pilot and its cargo in the dense and remote terrain went on for days. The pilot, an Australian citizen, went to Australia’s consulate in Papua New Guinea on Tuesday seeking assistance. He was charged locally with illegal entry into the country. Finally, on Friday, the stash was found, deep in the bush. Twenty-eight large bags stuffed with more than 500 kilos of coke, that’s about 1,100 pounds. It is the largest drug bust in the nation’s history. It is worth an estimated US$57 million US dollars. Australian authorities said that “greed played a significant part in the syndicate’s activities” and think the weight of the cargo had an impact on the plane’s ability to take off. Although the end was unexpectedly spectacular, it did not take Australian authorities completely by surprise. An investigation into the Melbourne-based, mob-linked syndicate and its use of Papua New Guinea as a transit point for drugs had been underway for two years, And after news of a crash, police quickly moved on their suspects, making arrests and seizing assets. Five people were arrested in Australia. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison. One man arrested in Australia, a 31 year old, is charged with directing activities of a criminal syndicate and money laundering, suggesting he was at or near the top of the crime network. Another man, also 31, was arrested. Police say his job was to meet the plane back in Australia and pack the cargo into this clever hiding spot in the back of a heavy truck — a hole cut into a stack of dry wall sheets, to be covered by complete dry wall sheets, for transit south to its final destination. Australian officials believe that the surreptitious flight was a response to COVID-19 travel restrictions interfering with the syndicate’s normal smuggling routes and methods. This a developing story and there arethings I don’t yet know, including specifics on the Italian mob connection. Presumably it’s connected to one of the ‘Ndrangheta clans that have a long history in Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation traced the plane’s ownership and found it was registered to a company whose only official had died — stabbed to death, as it turns out — shortly before the plane was acquired.




So while we know a lot about how the syndicate fell apart, I can’t wait to learn more about how it came together. Thanks for watching.





Australia - MR.