Cocaine Smugglers Buy Old Jets To Fly Across Atlantic -- Jerusalem Post/AP
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.
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Update #1: US: Gangs buy jets for trans-Atlantic coke flights -- AP
Update #2: Smugglers form 'cocaine airlines' -- Press Association
Update #3: South American drug gangs use cargo planes stuffed with cocaine to evade anti-narcotics forces -- New York Daily News/AP
Update #4: South American gangs flying vast quantities of cocaine to Europe -- The Guardian
Update #5: US uncovers cocaine jets -- News24
My Comment: The money involved must run in the hundreds of millions .... correction .... billions.