Canadian airliner was drug-smuggling front: Dominican prosecutors
A Canadian chartered airliner and its occupants were acting as a front for smuggling drugs into Toronto, Dominican Republic prosecutors alleged recently after a 210-kilogram stash of cocaine was found on the plane.
They urged a judge to keep the crew and passengers in custody for at least 12 months as the case is investigated, charging they were part of an elaborate trafficking “façade.”
But lawyers for the Public Ministry offered up little actual evidence implicating the mostly Canadian group, who were arrested soon after the contraband was found hidden inside the jet's “avionics bay.”
In fact, one of those crew members discovered the contraband and another reported the find, the judge hearing the group's bail hearing acknowledged in a written, Spanish-language decision obtained by the National Post and translated.
Judge Francis Yojary Reyes Dilone ordered them released on bail, and they were freed just after the Easter weekend, though must stay in the Dominican Republic until the investigation is done.
Pivot Airlines has been lobbying for their crew to be allowed to leave the country and say they face ongoing danger from drug traffickers until they can leave.
The judge's decision sheds some light on the prosecution's allegations against the Canadians, but little on the basis for those charges.
“The (passengers) served as a façade to make it appear that it was a private flight of people who were simply vacationing, when in fact their objective was to transport drugs from the Dominican Republic to abroad, specifically Toronto, Canada,” prosecutors told the Altagracia district court.
But prosecutors admitted “we did not establish that they were the ones who carried the packages,” and that “we are not accusing those charged of having taken the drugs on the plane.”
Defence lawyers said the whole group should be released immediately for lack of evidence against them.
The passengers “don't even have access to the area the drugs were found because it is restricted,” said an unnamed lawyer for the non-crew defendants.
A lawyer for the Pivot employees said “there is no evidence to support that they were accomplices in the act.”