Drug trafficking: The Mexican ‘narco-pilot’ who eluded the DEA assuming 9 completely different identities | Worldwide

The Hawker jet took off from Tapachula, within the south of Mexico, certain for the Dominican Republic. The crew had a neighborhood contact who had taken care of all of the logistics, from coordinating the touchdown to paying a bribe of $150,000 to the airport authorities in La Romana, a small metropolis on the jap tip of the island. The bribe was essential to acquiring a pretend flight plan, one of many technique’s key components. After the stopover within the Caribbean, the aircraft supposedly continued to Brazil in response to its pretend itinerary, then instantly disappeared from radar.

In truth, flying at low altitude, the plane, manned by Rupert de la Casas with Mexican Ronier Sánchez as co-pilot, was on its method to Venezuela, the place it was to choose up 1,650 kilos of cocaine from a clandestine airstrip within the Venezuelan savannah, near the Colombian border. From there, it was to fly to Honduras, the place the client was situated. If all went in response to plan, the cocaine would then be loaded onto vans and pushed again to southern Mexico and eventually transported to the US. However nothing turned out as anticipated. The jet crash-landed simply wanting the Venezuelan touchdown strip earlier than the cocaine might be picked up.

Having tracked the plane and intercepted calls, the authorities have been all set to dwelling in on the traffickers and arrest them after they’d collected the cocaine. However the crash foiled their operation. Sánchez, de la Casas and one other co-conspirator survived the crash and vanished with out a hint. It was August 7, 2016. The US authorities issued needed posters and an Interpol Crimson Discover to trace Roni down, and opened the case towards 4 defendants later that 12 months.

Assuming 9 completely different identities, Roni managed to dodge US authorities till Monday, March 22, 2021, when he landed in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, within the coronary heart of South America. Coming from Brazil, he went by migration together with everybody else and stayed in an apart-hotel in one of many metropolis’s wealthiest neighborhoods. He had a return ticket to Brazil for Saturday, maybe unaware that the Brazilian authorities and the US Drug Enforcement Company (DEA) had already warned the Paraguayan Anti-Drug Secretariat (Senad) of his actions.

Roni was arrested two days later when a number of armed officers burst into his room. His picture was despatched to each press company and even Paraguayan President Mario Abdo introduced his seize on his social networks, calling him “one of many US justice system’s most needed narco-pilots.”

The Paraguayan anti-drug company mentioned that the Mexican labored “for cartels in Mexico and Colombia,” dealing with worldwide trafficking by air from cocaine manufacturing zones in South America to redistribution facilities in Central America and the Caribbean, “managed by Mexican cartels.” The US justice system didn’t give particulars of which cartel or group Roni belonged to and, in response to Paraguayan safety sources, Roni has not been forthcoming both on the difficulty.

“Preliminary reviews indicated that he was hiding in Suriname,” mentioned Paraguayan Worldwide Affairs prosecutor, Manuel Doldan. “How did he pop up in Paraguay? That I don’t know.” The DEA narrowed his hiding place right down to Brazil and neighboring Paraguay. “He got here to Paraguay to purchase airplanes for his group,” Joel Torres, the top of the Paraguayan Legal professional Basic’s Workplace’s extradition division, advised EL PAÍS.

The precise extradition went easily and entailed no flight threat. Roni was escorted by officers on the airport carrying a bulletproof vest and a helmet. He hardly blinked as if he knew his arrest had solely been a matter of time. What was tough and prolonged was the method main as much as his extradition, says Torres. Roni’s Paraguayan attorneys appealed on the grounds that the US had no jurisdiction within the case, unnecessarily dragging out the process, in response to Torres. Within the meantime, Roni spent almost a 12 months and a half in custody on the identical jail in Asunción that Brazilian soccer participant Ronaldinho was held in shortly earlier than. Lastly, below heavy safety, he was extradited to america on July 22.

Nobody may dispute the truth that Sánchez had given the authorities the run-around. It took 5 years to arrest him and 6 earlier than he was lastly extradited to the state of Connecticut, the place he’s now dealing with trial. Through the course of the manhunt throughout half of Latin America, Sánchez appeared sanguine, posting photographs of himself with family and friends on Fb and Instagram, and boasting of journeys to iconic locations such because the Egyptian pyramids. He additionally shared his political beliefs on-line and made no secret of his ardour for flying. The whole lot he posted on social networks recommended that he was in Mexico, dwelling a carefree existence.

In 2017, the 12 months after the aircraft crash, Ronier Sánchez took a college diploma as an aviator pilot, in response to data from the Ministry of Public Schooling. On LinkedIn, he calls himself Ronnier Sanz and claims to have expertise as a pilot for a parcel firm, to have been first officer of Aeromexico and founding father of an aeronautical firm primarily based in Seattle. He even had enterprise playing cards made as director of the corporate.

Whereas Roni nonetheless proudly accepted compliments from family and friends, who admired his success as a businessman, different components of his trafficking community have been being processed by the US judicial system. Carlos Almonte Vásquez, Sánchez’s Dominican contact, agreed to plead responsible within the US courts in trade for a decreased sentence. In truth, Vásquez was additionally indicted in New York on one other cocaine trafficking cost: simply three months after the aircraft crash in Venezuela, Almonte and one other group tried to move Colombian medication from Ecuador, however have been arrested on a stopover in Haiti en path to Honduras.

The pilot on that event was American Todd Macaluso, a lawyer recognized for amassing a big fortune within the harm claims enterprise and who misplaced his license after being accused of dishonest his shoppers. After his launch from jail, Macaluso arrange enterprise as a pilot, however as a result of he was nonetheless on parole, he needed to notify the police each time he traveled, particularly outdoors the US. He boasted of getting a whole lot of expertise flying to Mexico and even claimed in a US courtroom that he labored as a pilot for the Kardashian household “for years.”

After Macaluso went bankrupt as a non-public aviator, a good friend organized a gathering with some Mexican drug traffickers at a seafood restaurant in Tijuana. A few days later, Macaluso took a flight to Orlando, Florida, after which flew to Haiti, bringing him into contact with Almonte Vásquez.

After choosing up the medication in Ecuador, the plan was to take 1.5 tons of cocaine to Honduras, the place it was to be bought by Bayron El Negro Ruiz, one in all Ecuador’s most harmful narcos; the Honduran press has linked Ruiz to the Sinaloa cartel and likewise the Jalisco Cartel-New Technology, two of Mexico’s strongest felony organizations, and there are additionally suspicions of his collaboration with top-level politicians in a rustic which has turn into a springboard for transcontinental drug routes. As the person accountable for getting quite a lot of merchandise throughout Central America and Mexico to the US, Ruiz was arrested in Guatemala in 2018 after being caught presenting a pretend ID to the authorities. He was sentenced to 5 years in jail in 2021 after pleading responsible to drug trafficking.

It was in the course of the investigation of Vásquez’s case that the authorities turned conscious of a brand new trafficking pattern involving using freelancers to shift the merchandise – pilots in determined circumstances like Macaluso, or pilots with no dedication to any particular cartel like Roni. The worldwide cocaine enterprise has turn into a recreation of intermediaries, virtually all of them with their very own specialty that acts as a hyperlink within the lengthy chain that goes from producer to client.

Vásquez defined that they have been paid $9,000 for every kilo of cocaine and that at the very least two pairs of drivers, additionally referred to as capis or chauffeurs, are often used. To keep away from any disloyalty or betrayal, one pair of pilots flies outbound; one other inbound.

Pilots – or couriers – are often categorised as both “right-handed” or “left-handed,” referring to the seat every occupies within the cabin. The fee to every pilot is $150,000 for your complete journey, plus a bonus of $35,000 when the deal is closed. Something goes to keep away from getting caught, together with turning off the radar and bribing the authorities.

In accordance with a narcotics officer concerned within the operation, “felony organizations typically favor to make use of US-registered plane as a result of they consider they’ll be topic to much less scrutiny by international authorities.” This was Sánchez’s technique; he used a jet owned by an unnamed Delaware firm. “After choosing up the narcotics within the nation of origin or neighboring nations, the organizations direct the planes to a trans-shipment level, generally in Central America,” provides the officer.

Paraguayan authorities warn that there are rising indications of alliances between Paraguay and drug traffickers from Mexico, Colombia, Europe and Brazil, as Paraguay matches the invoice as a strategic trans-shipment level.

World cocaine manufacturing peaked at virtually 2,000 tons in 2020, though air shouldn’t be the most well-liked modus operandi for shifting the merchandise. In truth, 90% of the drug is moved by sea, in response to the newest report from the United Nations Workplace on Medicine and Crime.

A lot of the data pertaining to Sánchez’s case is assessed. After touchdown in Connecticut, some 4,000 miles from the place his aircraft crashed in 2016, Roni pleaded not responsible and stopped posting on social networks. Almonte Vázquez, in the meantime, has been sentenced to 12 years. Rupert de la Casas has pleaded responsible and is awaiting sentencing. If discovered responsible, Roni faces something from 10 years to life behind bars.