A network of airplane technicians who enabled the shipment of drugs from Colombia to the United States has been dismantled.
The network consisted of two technicians in Colombia who would camouflage the drugs in various parts of the aircraft while doing repairs on the plane to then have their counterparts in Miami remove the drugs.
The Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that between between four and five kilos of heroin were sent weekly to Miami to later be distributed on the streets of New York and Florida.
Police recently arrested seven people in Barranquilla, Bogota, and the United States. Among them was Alexander Enrique Batalla, alias “Alex,” head of the network. He is wanted in a Florida court for drug trafficking.
Alex would contact different investors to buy the heroin and then technicians in airports in Barranquilla and Bogota, paying them between two and three million pesos for each shipment. They would hide the heroin in containers disguised as cane sugar packets or sometimes the airplane technicians would hide the drugs in the sole of their shoes.
Working together, the DEA and anti-narcotics police in Colombia managed to stop some shipments, apprehending a plane with 1.4 kilos of heroin in Miami on August 3.
More recently on October 2 authorities located nearly one kilo of heroin hidden in an aircraft waiting to take off from Bogota to Miami.
Four other people related to the crimes have been captured in Miami, two technicians and two distributors.