A story about using GA aircraft for drug smuggling and the results from yesteryear, many moons ago after I finished training for my PPL in LA and trying to hour build there were a few CFI guys who hung around the airport bar who ran small charter operations, they both offered me right seat time in twins which was really tempting, one of them ran an operation called “The Mile High Club” which as you can probably guess involved taking a beat-up old Twin Commander up to 5200 feet, sliding a small curtain between upfront and the passengers, turning on a red light (ironic huh) in the rear, circling while they bonked then landing and giving them a bottle of shampers and a certificate acknowledging the couples status as freshly minted members of the mile high club. That was a lot of fun with many memorable moments.
Another operator told me how he flew his 310 down to Mexico a few times a week in the middle of the night to pick up a load of shrimp for an LA based Mexican guy who distributed seafood at the markets downtown. I was asked if I wanted to do some flights with him as I guess it was boring doing it on his own, as tempted as I was getting to log some twin time I declined as arriving back in LA at 5am with no sleep I would have been knackered for work. Fast forward several years and after landing in the US upon completion of a shrimp run the plane gets surrounded by the full works, DEA, Local cops with guns at the ready and dressed like storm troopers etc. Turns out the “shrimp” was sniff and/or smokable. Bottom line, the last he seen of his beautiful 310 as he was being driven off the airport cuffed-up in the back seat were the feds posing in front of the Cessna taking trophy pictures of their latest confiscation/asset seizure, he went off to do a decade of Federal time, plea bargained down from a potential life sentence.
The moral of the story, It’s a mugs game.
Oh I forgot to say how they knew, I guess a DEA agent always suspected what he was up too but could never prove it or catch him, the agent moved to a totally different division of the government for a while then decided he wanted to go back to the DEA, his first week back on the job he remembered about the “one that got away” and decided to take a second look, he pulled up any flight plans that the pilot had filed or was flying and waited for the right moment. Then it was curtains (and hard time) for the pilot !, I see on Facebook he was recently released with his kids all grown up and wife remarried.
Last edited by piperboy84; 8th Nov 2012 at 18:34.