HomeNewsBriefHuge UK Cocaine Seizure on Private Jet Signals Traffickers' Growing Boldness
BRIEF

Huge UK Cocaine Seizure on Private Jet Signals Traffickers' Growing Boldness

COCAINE / 7 FEB 2018 BY TRISTAN CLAVEL EN

A foiled attempt to smuggle half a metric ton of cocaine in a private jet from Colombia’s main international airport to the United Kingdom suggests crime groups are becoming bolder in their efforts to offload the South American country’s booming cocaine production.

UK authorities announced last week that they had seized 15 cocaine-loaded suitcases and arrested five European passengers on January 29 at the Farnborough Airport near London. The private jet had departed the previous day from Bogotá’s El Dorado international airport, the largest in Colombia.

The United Kingdom’s Border Force described the shipment, worth around $70 million in the European country, as "one of the largest seizures of its kind" in UK history.

The private flight had raised suspicion due to the declared professions of the passengers, according to the Colombian magazine Semana. Among the five passengers who had supposedly paid for the $300,000 flight were two construction workers, an assistant chef, a hairdresser and an unemployed individual. Three of the suspects had entered Colombia with a tourist visa in November 2017 with the intention of buying cocaine for Italy's ‘Ndrangheta mafia, according to El Espectador.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the seizure sparked an investigation by Colombian authorities into the security failures that allowed the cocaine to take off from Bogotá. Colombian law enforcement is looking into the possibility that an individual disguised as a police officer may have helped load the drugs into the plane while it was in a hangar at El Dorado.

US and Colombian authorities suspect the shipment was overseen by a Colombian criminal structure that has revived the modus operandi of smuggling via private jets, according to Semana. This group is allegedly also behind the 1.2 metric tons of cocaine seized near the French border with Spain in November 2017, as well as the one metric ton aerial shipment seized a year earlier by French authorities in the southwestern city of Bayonne.

InSight Crime Analysis

As levels of cocaine production in Colombia have risen to new records in recent years, more of the drug has been flowing to Europe. And while most cocaine is shipped across the Atlantic via maritime cargo routes, the use of private planes appears to be a growing in popularity among traffickers.

In years past, traffickers preferred to fly drugs into West Africa, where they were shipped on to European markets via land and sea routes. However, recent seizures like the one in the United Kingdom indicate that trafficking groups are now taking greater risks by flying the cocaine straight into Europe, despite significantly stricter security and customs checks.

SEE ALSO: European Organized Crime

The boom in Colombian cocaine production has increased trafficking groups' capacity to absorb losses from seizures, and has thus emboldened them to carry out smuggling schemes that carry high risks, such as sending larger loads of drugs in individual shipments and flying cocaine-filled suitcases on private jets into major European urban centers.

Moreover, the European market has grown in popularity for Colombian traffickers, in part due to the dominance of Mexican groups in supplying cocaine to the United States, the world's largest market for the drug.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BOLIVIA / 22 SEP 2021

A heist of Brazilian planes that were later discovered in Bolivia has offered a unique look into how drug planes…

COLOMBIA / 28 JUL 2022

Colombia's Urabeños are killing police officers, letting the incoming government know they're still a force to be reckoned with.

ARGENTINA / 5 JUL 2022

Why did drug trafficking enjoy such a boom during the COVID-19 pandemic…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

All Eyes on Ecuador

2 JUN 2023

Our coverage of organized crime in Ecuador continues to be a valuable resource for international and local news outlets. Internationally, Reuters cited our 2022 Homicide Round-Up,…

WORK WITH US

Open Position: Social Media and Engagement Strategist

27 MAY 2023

InSight Crime is looking for a Social Media and Engagement Strategist who will be focused on maintaining and improving InSight Crime’s reputation and interaction with its audiences through publishing activities…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Receives Great Reception

27 MAY 2023

Several of InSight Crime’s most recent articles about Venezuela have been well received by regional media. Our article on Venezuela’s colectivos expanding beyond their political role to control access to…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report Continues

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.