Multiple threads merged.
Yes I am sure this is a real risk to GA because the police love to create more work. All enforcement agencies like to justify their existence.
As posted previously, there are standard ways to do it, but the people doing it are pretty stupid because the operation is pretty easy to track. Anybody can do it once or even several times but pretty soon they will be onto you.
I am surprised jets are used. Here they use helicopters; the better ones can do 150kt+.
Speaking of stupid things that give GA a bad press: Cessna 210 caught hauling drugs in Ireland
Final paragraph, automated translation:
“This is where the article should have ended. But Friday, December 1, 2023, the story got a separate twist! It now appears that the aircraft was seized by the Gardaí (the Irish police) at Weston Airport (EIWT) that day. 60 kilos of heroin worth €8 million were found on board, the largest amount intercepted in Ireland this year. Two Hungarians aged 40 and 60 were arrested. Read the Irish Times article on the catch HERE
Wondering what will become of this Cessna 210H Centurion. The arrested occupants will probably not be able to go out with it for a few days…”
How I wish stupid criminals would not do this. It only makes life harder for those of us flying GA….
Unfortunately not the first time GA has been used for drug running out of EIWT. A Citation in 2006 going to Belgium, and I think a Beechcraft Baron before then, smuggling from northern Spain.
I‘m wondering that small planes are not used more often for this kind of business. Droping things out of the window esp. Cessnas over a field is so easy. Only the stupiest of them would take it into the airport.
hmng wrote:
Wondering what will become of this Cessna 210H Centurion.
I would not touch it with a bargepole after the customs and police had a thorough search for drugs. They don’t tend to be fussy about how they obtain access to hidden places, especially if they already have found something and hence know the aircraft was definitely used for smuggling.
Tigerflyer wrote:
Droping things out of the window esp. Cessnas over a field is so easy.
How can three little containers can hold such a value!? It’s total bollock that drugs are so expensive. That is no good for no one.
UdoR wrote:
How can three little containers can hold such a value!? It’s total bollock that drugs are so expensive.
Why do you think drug smuggling is still so darn attractive that people risk their lifes for it? 60 kgs is an insane quantity too, hence the enormeous “street value”. The more illegal something is, the more expensive it gets. Risk money. The higher the risk, the larger the profit however.
controversial
I really don’t understand why recreational drugs aren’t legalised, quality checked, and taxed. Those that want to take them will always want them, those that don’t want them don’t. Legalisation would wipe out a whole section of criminality and free up police resources. Quality controls would reduce deaths. Taxes put the profits to government coffers… It works for Alcohol & Cigarettes…
I really don’t understand why recreational drugs aren’t legalised, quality checked, and taxed.
But in this case it’s about heroin which hardly can be classified as recreational drug.
skydriller wrote:
controversialI really don’t understand why recreational drugs aren’t legalised, quality checked, and taxed. Those that want to take them will always want them, those that don’t want them don’t. Legalisation would wipe out a whole section of criminality and free up police resources. Quality controls would reduce deaths. Taxes put the profits to government coffers… It works for Alcohol & Cigarettes…
It does seem reasonable to me. The challenge we would have to deal with if things are legalized, is what are all the people that are currently making money with illegal drugs going to do? I don’t mean the local pusher, but the big guys that like things the way they are – where will they put their efforts after their major source of revenue is destroyed?
