1.3 tonne of Cocaine found onboard an Air France aircraft in Paris...

[Jet Jockey A4]

For sure an inside job with ramp employees part of the scheme.

Poor Air France... Can’t catch a break!:sad:


Yahoo News Canada - Latest News & Headlines (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/record-1-3-tonne-cocaine-haul-found-air-211816848.html)

[2Planks]

Is that a record for the most expensive amount of hold cargo in one ac??
Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!

[LTNman]

Just shows how easy it is to plant a bomb in a random suitcase and put it on a flight.

[Jet Jockey A4]

Couldn't agree more.

All these security measures are for "show" only.

[DaveReidUK]

Just shows how easy it is to plant a bomb in a random suitcase and put it on a flight.Only if you assume that everyone who's prepared to look the other way to facilitate the loading of a tonne of coke would be equally happy to play a part in blowing an aircraft full of passengers out of the sky.

[Paolo6691]

You don't tell it is a bomb, a plain box looks the same either full of cocaine or tnt

[Herod]

I presume the whole loading team were in on it? What happened to bag/pax reconciliation, or does that only apply in Europe.

[Heathrow Harry]

probably half the airport staff were in on it - or at least knew enough to "look the other way"

[Una Due Tfc]

Over 30 suitcases registered with names of people not on the aircraft. Shocking lapse in security.

And what the hell were they thinking doing this on the 11th of September? If there was one day you can gurantee extra checks will be made....

[LEGAL TENDER]

What happened to bag/pax reconciliation, or does that only apply in Europe.

All it takes is a corrupt/rogue dispatcher and baggage team leader.
Usually temping staff on a (next to) minimum wage.

I did it once as a seasonal temp worker at a major UK airport, after 2 weeks on the job I was left on my own to make the final call on pax/bag reconciliation.

[PilotsOfTheCaribbean]

This is really quite remarkable!

Every time I have transited through CDG with AF, they have only managed to lose my suitcases.

[DX Wombat]

what the hell were they thinking doing this on the 11th of September?Do you know something which none of the rest of us do? According to Reuters:
They (ie Air France) did not give a precise date. That said, it was a frightening lapse of security - or was it? Until we know more, who is to say that some of the airport security staff were not behind it? If they were, then would it not be reasonable to assume that they would have taken every possible measure to ensure such a valuable cargo reached its destination? How many previous consignments have already been sent prior to this one?

[Una Due Tfc]

It was reported on France24 (a tv news station) as having occured on September 11th

[broadreach]

From the Yahoo News site in the first post:

"Pending the results of these investigations, immediate measures have been taken to enhance our checks of baggage and goods on departure from certain sensitive destinations," the airline said in a statement.

Gobbledegook

[DX Wombat]

Thank you UDT.

[Tigger4Me]

Only SLF and student PPL (failed!) here so go easy with me please guys. Obviously I have no intimate knowledge of how the ramp operates and the first thought that came to my mind was the fuel calculation. Would this extra 1.3 tonnes have been notified to the flight deck? If not, could it have been a safety issue? Also, if not notified, would the then inaccurate weight/balance calculation have compromised safety?

[Burnie5204]

Thing that gets me about this (speaking as someone that is also a Special Constable) is that suppliers and dealers wouldn't just move 1.3T in one go the first time they try the 'route'.

This must have been going on for months or years moving numerous smaller loads to 'route test' to check that they could actually move it through the system before you go for 1.3T of pure white.


Which begs the question - how much more cocaine has moved through CDG in this manner before this haul got caught?

[connies4ever]

Definitely inside. Back in the 60s my father worked the YWG ramp for AC. Called home one night to say "I'll be late". Got in 4AM, had been grilled by RCMP re hash on AC Western Arrow (LHR-YWG-YVR). Actually it was Dad that found it on top of a ceiling panel in a rear loo. Was LHR staff working with ME contacts.

Also in the 80s, packets of blow were found in mx spaces on the wings of A320s working MBJ-YWG. To access these spaces you need a special tool, not just a Robertson screwdriver. So it was obviously not SLF trying to mule something.

[FullWings]

Would this extra 1.3 tonnes have been notified to the flight deck?
Yes, on the NOTOC: Benzoylmethylecgonine, 1,300Kg

It would make a great 'nosebag' for the crew party!

[wiggy]

French language report here:

1,3 tonne interceptée à Roissy. Saisie record de cocaïne - Paris Match (http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Faits-divers/Saisie-record-de-cocaine-529660)

Mentions that Venezuelan authorities have arrested 3 soldiers (?guards).

[Yancey Slide]

I think hold baggage is all weighed? Did they have fake baggage tags like they went across the scale to make sure they overcharge you for your bag?

[BARKINGMAD]

In a 100+ tonne aircraft it would hardly register IMHO. 1.3% or less of AUW?

Read "Trail of the Octopus" and think back to Lockerbie and ponder the implications, if you can sleep afterwards? :suspect:

[edmundronald]

yeah, sure, the drugs trade is the only multibillion import business which doesn't use air transport -

guys, don't mock the hand that feeds you :)

[cattletruck]

As has already been alluded to 1.3t is not a quantity often used on first attempts.

Looks like the Venezuelan economy has taken a small hit in its GDP.

The question is who in Paris would have showed up at the baggage claim? We will never know.

[RatherBeFlying]

Baggage handlers in South America will look the other way if it keeps their families safe:(

But I do think the shippers have been overindulging in their own product if they thought that shipping a tonne+ at a time was going to work. Now maybe it's a diversion from a 50 tonne shipment in a mother ship docking????

[172driver]

....outbound also seems to have its share of issues: just read that 50kgs of gold were stolen from an a/c at CDG.

[Ngineer]

And what the hell were they thinking doing this on the 11th of September?

My guess is that it isn't the first time, and being 9/11 (with extra security checks if they were actually in force) the people involved were finally caught out.

Who ever said there's no money in freight?

[Sober Lark]

Obviously the smugglers used no imaginative ways to disguise or conceal the drugs. If they did they'd have probably been caught.

[angels]

Yes, three Venezuelan National Guardsmen have been arrested. That is, on ther surface of it, an adequate enough explanation for how the drugs got on board.

If you're a handler in a place like Caracas, a Guardsman telling you to wander off for a fag break, "Oh, and how are the wife and kids?....," is an offer you can't refuse.

According to the wires, thrree Italians and three Brits have been arrested in Paris. This is the biggest ever seizure of Charlie in France so I find it hard to believe no French nationals were involved!

[Sunnyjohn]

My guess is that it isn't the first time I think your guess is right and this is just the tip of one very large iceberg, with that amount of money involved. The only way you'll stop it is to stop it being used. Go and tell that to the weekend parties in London - and the rest.

[bedsted]

A net haul of 1300kgs in 31 bags! For each case, that makes about 42kg of coke and say + 3kg for the case, a whopping 45kg per suitcase.
As the max allowed by AF is 32kg per bag, surely someone should have thought this ‘odd’ for 30+ bags to be so much OTT.:=
Incidentally 1.3 tons payload is nothing to an A330.:ok:

[edmundronald]

Internet research -I'm so naive - tells me that 130mg would be a very good dose, so 1.3T is about 10 Million doses, so we can assume that there must be a couple of hundred of these shipments made to France every year.

From which this seizure becomes a loss rate of less than 1/2 %; add a few more and you will be at the normal loss-rate for checked airline bags :E

On the other hand, the value of the shipment is sort of in the same ballpark as the value of the ship.

[Speed of Sound]

Over 30 suitcases registered with names of people not on the aircraft. Shocking lapse in security.

Surely that would be over 65 cases if it really was 1.3 tonnes seized? :confused:

[Nicolaus Silver]

Have always felt these passenger mules were decoys and some shopped to let everyone feel authorities are on top of illicit traffic. Big operators want big action, not 10 analised ounces carried by desperados.

Would also suspect container loads would also have been used and "rostered" personnel see the stuff go through.

But after Vietnam would also take a close look at military air movements as they can fly in at night, distribute and with only "rostered" personnel on duty.

After gorging some AF lemon sorbets I wonder if 2 similiar aircraft, possibly belonging to military, one departing from say Asia and the other domestic, can fly across each others flight path and "alter" their identity so the incoming flight from Asia stacked with goodies can become the domestic flight to land at an isolate military airfield and not get any attention.

[FlamantRose]

Incidentally 1.3 tons payload is nothing to an A330.

Could it be that the A330 is the only aircraft type in the world that is not subject to MTOW llimits ? Also what about the center of gravity ? i.e: 1,300 kg loaded in the tail end would have no effect on the CoG ?
I am pretty sure the 1,300 kg were not taken into account in the load/trim sheets !!!

[Burnie5204]

Except it was taken into account as bags registered to persons not on the flight.

[edmundronald]

Any "corporation" that loads 100 Million dollars (resale) of stuff on a plane will certainly desire the plane to arrive intact ...

The drug wholesale shippers seem to be on the side of the angels :)

[Una Due Tfc]

Sos, France24 reported it was "just over 30 suitcases", may not be correct

Edmund, I know what you mean but frankly I find it terrifying that a large number of bags not belonging to passengers made it onto a French aircraft on the anniversary of the worst terrorist atrocity in living memory when the same group behind that vile act are kown to be targeting French assets

[SMT Member]

Thousands of bags are loaded every day without the owners being onboard. This is caused by the airlines, handling agents and airports failing in securing the bag is connected along with the passenger, getting left behind and forwarded on the next flight as unaccompanied baggage. Nothing unusual about that at all, and I suspect that is also the case here - or at least that was the way the bags were declared.

[BARKINGMAD]

Amazing how the lessons of Lockerbie, and the rules on unaccompanied baggage have been forgotten, 25 years after that major tragedy.

Do we assume these bags were specially screened?

With what they contained I doubt any competent hold baggage screener would pass them as the contents should show up as expensive icing sugar, so are the baggage security staff in on the deal?

PanAm 103 showed the way the villains could get a target using controlled drug runs (ignore all the official :mad: about Megrahi and Malta!) and it looks like we're looking at another actual weak link.

[Sober Lark]

That single cocaine flight carried 39,311 times the 30g limit for a mandatory death sentence in Singapore!

I fully agree with previous posters who have stated it makes a mockery of security. That aside I wonder what the risks to passengers would have been if a bag burst in the hold or imagine trying to explain how your baggage has tested positive for a routine spray test for cocaine by border security and that you're not involved in drug trafficking.

[angels]

It's quite simple really and boils down to corruption. Forget about western-style security! Yesterday another five more National Guards were arrested in Caracas. One of them is a Lieutenant-Colonel.

The proceeds of one successful flight are enough to pay off hundreds of people in Caracas. And, of course, you pay the Big Chief more than the Indians.

Do you think it stops at Lieutenant-Colonel level?

And, as I've said before, the usual rules don't apply when an army guy gives you 500 euros and tells you he knows where your family live.

[boguing]

I'm being a bit thick I think. Just can't understand the mechanisms used by the French Police.

European Police worked together. No mention of a Venezuelan contact.

Taking that at face value suggests that the package was found at some point during unloading the hold and the trip to the carousel. Is a name check done during that time? Seems unlikely. Sniffer/X-ray after unloading? Not routine surely?

Given that some sleight of hand must have been used at the departure, then a tip-off seems to be the only way to detect this. And thank goodness. In this case.

But if it's that easy, how many are not tipped-off? Terrifying.

[DX Wombat]

No mention of a Venezuelan contact.
May I suggest you read Angels' post carefully? That should tell you why, if there was one, no Venezuelan contact is mentioned. No Customs/Other Agency is going to risk the life of an important contact.

[boguing]

Ah, yes.

Angels posted while I was typing. I fully agree with you dx. There is a very brave man out there and I wish him all the luck in the world.

[A A Gruntpuddock]

"enhance our checks of baggage and goods on departure from certain sensitive destinations"

Hardly reassuring!

[PAXboy]

"Pending the results of these investigations, immediate measures have been taken to enhance our checks of baggage and goods on departure from certain sensitive destinations," the airline said in a statement.
If they got as far as they did with this shipment, they have clearly done it before. Finding out which are the 'sensitive destinations' to avoid, will be a breeze. One must admire their abilities to know the weak links.

[Major Cleve Saville]

"That single cocaine flight carried 39,311 times the 30g limit for a mandatory death sentence in Singapore!"

Yes definitely a quantity 'not to be sniffed at'.

[Heathrow Harry]

I wonder how much will be "required" for lab tests, prosecution examples or will just amazingly evaporate into thin air from the police locker they keep it in...............

[Herod]

I'm not surprised about the Caracas end of things, but there must have been quite a set-up in Paris as well. The loaders would have to be in on it, because the bags wouldn't have made it to the carousel. Considering that the loading team is probably allocated at random as an aircraft arrives, it must have involved a lot of people.Then you have the problem of driving a baggage truck, with bags on, to some remote part of the airfield without anyone noticing, transferring the bags to another vehicle, and getting away from the airport.

[edmundronald]

I'd expect the pros who do this have a VERY strong interest in business as usual and are taking huge precautions to prevent anyone else piggybacking on "their" route and messing it up. At this point nothing would be worse news to the cartels than somebody messing up "their" plane and a real post-incident investigation by "real" law enforcement ... by "real" I mean different from the high-up on the receiving end who are partners in this setup.

Let's face it, $200M loss is the sort of money that an airline would pay in damages to european passengers in a pilot-error accident - so the cartels probably have safety procedures equivalent to those of airline maintenance, equivalent security, and equivalent airport costs :)

[hunterboy]

I seem to remember a similar story in BA several years ago when drugs were found on several of our South American flights. If I remember correctly, on the next flight they found a hand grenade. I understand that it had been left as a warning not to interfere in their business. It all seemed to go quiet after that....

[cockney steve]

western European and American airlines would simply stop doing business with the country concerned. That would have a pretty bad economic effect on a country.

And make the gummint concerned reappraise the economic benifits of turning a blind eye to the trade.

maybe the way forward, but not a quick-fix.

[Sunnyjohn]

but not a quick-fix. Nice Freudian slip there, cs!

[A30yoyo]

Could that be a whole LD3 container switched ( or re-placarded)?

[AlphaZuluRomeo]

Forget about carousels, last news are suitcases were containerised as freight:

Extract (my translation):
According to a source close to the case, suitcases "were not recorded by the usual circuit", that is to say, they did not pass through the check-in counter of Air France in Caracas. They were transported as cargo in a container on a passenger flight, and labeled on behalf of ghosts passengers like "Carlos Ortega" or "Bianca Sanchez." Their introduction into the hold necessarily needed many accomplices.

At Roissy they also escaped the usual circuit and have been stored in the freight zone until Friday, September 20, when a transport truck came to take delivery, enroute to Luxembourg.

Source: Saisie record de cocaïne : un responsable d'Air France à Caracas arrêté (http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/09/25/saisie-de-cocaine-le-directeur-adjoint-du-bureau-d-air-france-a-caracas-arrete_3484656_3224.html)

[blissbak]

Like Air America , "Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, Professionally" ,
Gold bars worth £1.35m stolen on Air France flight to Zurich from Paris - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10332361/Gold-bars-worth-1.35m-stolen-on-Air-France-flight-to-Zurich-from-Paris.html)

[Heathrow Harry]

And meanwhile in the USA



Federal agents conducted dozens of income-generating tobacco (http://www.reuters.com/sectors/industries/overview?industryCode=115&lc=int_mb_1001) sting operations without approval during the last seven years and misplaced more than 2 million cartons of cigarettes, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday.


Despite the lack of required prior approval, churning investigations are allowed under statutory authority, according to the report, and are conducted to generate funding from illegal transactions to pay for expenses incurred during the investigations.
More than 2.1 million cartons, containing 420 million cigarettes, purchased during at least 20 separate ATF sting operations, are missing, according to the audit. The estimated retail (http://www.reuters.com/sectors/industries/overview?industryCode=103&lc=int_mb_1001) value of the cigarettes is $127 million, according to the report.


ATF disputes the numbers in the inspector general's audit, an agency spokeswoman said. "The OIG report inaccurately implies ATF cannot account for 2.1 million cartons of cigarettes or that the cigarettes are missing," Colbrun said in an email.


The ATF did a reconstructive inventory that showed 447,218 cartons were not accounted for because of "insufficient documentation," Colbrun said.
The black market value, which the cigarettes were sold at during the sting operations, is estimated at $7.2 million, according to the ATF.

[mixduptransistor]

According to a UN report I dug up, at 2010 prices in France, 1.3 metric tonnes is somewhere in the range of US$104 Million.

Someone mentioned that this might have been a rouse to keep them from finding a much larger shipment--I doubt they'd lose $100 million on something like that.

And, $104 Million goes a long way to pay off all the people it would take to pull this off.