NEW YORK: Three members of a drug-trafficking ring were sentenced to prison after they admitted to smuggling into the US $6.5million worth of cocaine stashed on board a corporate jet last year.
Christian Dupre Arroba, 34, Marco Cannizzo Gaona, 30, and 49-year-old Manuel Weisson pleaded guilty in April to one count of conspiracy to import cocaine.
Gaona and Arroba also pleaded guilty to a second charge of possession with intent to supply.
According to federal prosecutors, members of an Ecuadorian drug-smuggling syndicate used a 1976 Gulfstream II jet to transport 485lbs of cocaine from Venezuela to South Florida
In a bid to avoid detection by law enforcement, the contrabandists stripped down the plane by removing panels, seats and floorboards, and then crammed every nook and cranny of the aircraft with cocaine
In October, the smugglers carried out a dry run by flying the corporate jet without any narcotics on board from South America to Las Vegas to see if they would be hindered by the authorities.
The criminals did not know at the time, however, that the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating the drug ring for about a year after getting a tip about the illegal operation.
Undercover agents working at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport were even able to sneak a hidden camera inside a hanger used by the unsuspecting traffickers.
On November 14, 2014, the suspects flew the Gulfstream jet from Fort Lauderdale to Venezuela, with stops along the way at Cayman Islands and Trinidad and Tobago.
Nine days later, the plane laden with 485lbs of South American cocaine returned to the ‘bugged’ Fort Lauderdale airport hanger.
When Christian Arroba and Marco Gaona showed up at the airport to unload the jet a day later, FBI agents were waiting for them.
The duo’s co-conspirator, Manuel Weisson, was arrested sometime later.
On Monday, Arroba and Gaona were sentenced to five years and 10 months and six years and six months in federal prison, respectably. Weisson was handed a prison term of six years and eight months.
Arroba and Gaona, both from Ecuador, will be deported from the US after serving out their sentences. Weisson, who is a naturalized US citizen, could also be removed and sent back to his native Ecuador.
