Report warns: cocaine is flown between Brazil and Europe on private jets

European authorities are setting their sights on private corporate jets after dismantling a network that used private jets to smuggle cocaine between Brazil and Portugal.

The Brazilian newspaper "O Globo" stated in a report that on April 12, eight aircraft were seized for companies operating illegally in Brazil in a police operation in which the smuggling network was dismantled, a fact that became known after the confiscation of two private planes, according to a memorandum. Brazilian.

In February, Federal Police officers confiscated half a ton of cocaine hidden on a plane at Salvador International Airport in Brazil, bound for Portugal, the mechanics discovered cocaine - marked with sports slogans - after the pilot alerted the control tower of technical problems. The plane was in the name of an aircraft leasing company, according to Corrio da Manha, Portugal.

Before that, in October 2020, Portuguese authorities discovered 175 kilograms of cocaine at Lisbon International Airport on board a private plane that left the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. In addition to the seizure, three people have been arrested, according to the O Globo newspaper report.

A source said that the Portuguese and Brazilian authorities had received alerts about a possible cocaine smuggling between the two countries using private planes, during the epidemic, due to the decrease in commercial flights.

With European port authorities on high alert searching for cocaine in sea shipments and extending travel restrictions on commercial flights, confirmed shipping routes between Europe and Brazil have been disrupted since the pandemic was declared. But the scheme to smuggle cocaine on private jets shows that smugglers have found alternative ways to reach lucrative European markets.

Over the past five years, Brazil has become an important transit point for cocaine in South America bound for Europe, including Portugal, which is also an important outlet for imported cocaine to enter other countries in the ancient continent.

Despite their costs, private jets have become attractive to the transatlantic drug trade. In January 2018, authorities at an airport in London, England, confiscated 15 bags loaded with cocaine and detained five passengers on a private plane that took off from Bogota. In 2019, a member of the Brazilian Air Force smuggled nearly 40 kilograms of cocaine on board a military plane bound for Seville, Spain.

However, airplanes are very expensive smuggling vehicles and often require the complicity of the pilots. In the latest scheme unveiled in Brazil, officials say several partners and aircraft operators are likely to be involved.