[CloudHound]

I don't like foul mouthed Chef Gordon Ramsay, but I'm glad I put that aside and watched his documentary last night; Ramsay on Cocaine.

The drug world is something that has never touched me, my family nor anyone I know, so my ignorance of the problem was completely exposed. I'm not looking to debate drug culture but I do think we should have a discussion about the role light aircraft may play in the export of money and the import of cocaine to the UK.

The tonnage (yes tonnage!) that comes here each year is huge and a lot gets through. Yes, shipping in by sea is the criminals first route of choice, but the shear volume of product and the mind blowing amounts of money to be made must tempt pilots to get involved.

When I look out for suspicious activity around GA it's been people trafficking not drugs; I live near the south coast. I'm adding drug running to the list now. And money laundering too, as it's all cash transactions and the money has to go abroad sometime.

We know there are bad people around flying and occasionally on fora like this, so chances are it's going on near you now. If you haven't got the latest on cocaine in British society watch on catch up and see drugged drivers caught picking up their children from school.

[riverrock]

People do get caught doing this. Since all flights in / out of the UK are recorded and often met, it doesn't seem like the easiest / most sensible way. Not sure how much of a discussion there can be beyond "don't do it" and if you see something suspicious, report it.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... op-in-kent
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-37547324
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bi ... ne-9502665
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... years.html
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/men- ... drugs-plot

[Jonzarno]

Which channel was it on?

If you are looking out for people concerned in drug smuggling or money laundering in the context of GA: what signs do you look out for?

[CloudHound]

Not really sure, Jonzarno.

I suppose I’m hoping forumites will come forward with experiences, advice and such like.

It was on ITV One last night before the News.

[Dave W]

Available on-demand here.

As to what to look out for, here is an Operation Pegasus leaflet. Sneaky people are involved, so naturally the signs the leaflet mentions are unlikely to be comprehensive.

[matthew_w100]

I'd do boats rather than planes to get it in. But I imagine most catches are achieved by rolling up the distribution chain(how *do* you get rid of 100kg of cocaine without having to trust someone essentially untrustworthy?) so I suspect local vigilance won't make a huge amount of difference.

But I've just remembered I don't care how much gets into the country. If people want to use it as an alternative to alcohol, let them.

[A le Ron]

I’m afraid that, working in acute hospital medicine, I do care.

[romille]

I also care about illegal drugs and the impact it has on the lives of those that are related to users and addicts. My only observation is that over the years many strategies have been tried to stop sellers and users, but they have failed, mainly because of the ingenuity of the importers and the vast sums of money involved. Perhaps we need a new approach, a change of direction as clearly trying to ban drugs doesn't work.

[RisePilot]

As a university student in the 1980’s in the US, I had a side job as a waiter. Among the 20-somethings on the wait staff there was one older guy in his 30’s. He seemed to live much “nicer” than a waiter’s income would provide. I got to know him and found he had been a pilot flying drugs into the country during the late 70’s and early 80’s. He had been to prison and was now working as a waiter.

Over a beer one evening after a shift, I said “explain to me how you can fly out of the country and back in unimpeded with a cargo of drugs”. He noted that the Reagan era crackdown on drugs which included higher surveillance and chase planes where his undoing and it was no longer possible.

He said what they would do would be to fly out of the country (Gulf Coast) from non-towered airports and fly low level until out into the gulf. For their return, they would file a flight plan showing that they were departing from some small non-descript airport in southern Georgia or Mississippi. He said they’d fly back skimming the treetops until reaching the airport and then “pull up and point the aircraft up to the sun” and make radio calls as if they were taking off.

On his last run, they were intercepted by chase planes and took their Beech low over the water and unbundled all the drugs and threw it out of the plane. The chase plane could see this, but not recover any of the load, so upon landing, the Feds vacuumed the plane (yielding a small handful of drugs) and then prosecuted them to the highest possible sentence for the amount. He went to a minimum-security prison and had his FAA license taken for life.

[romille]

As a university student in the 1980’s in the US, I had a side job as a waiter. Among the 20-somethings on the wait staff there was one older guy in his 30’s. He seemed to live much “nicer” than a waiter’s income would provide. I got to know him and found he had been a pilot flying drugs into the country during the late 70’s and early 80’s. He had been to prison and was now working as a waiter.

Over a beer one evening after a shift, I said “explain to me how you can fly out of the country and back in unimpeded with a cargo of drugs”. He noted that the Reagan era crackdown on drugs which included higher surveillance and chase planes where his undoing and it was no longer possible.

He said what they would do would be to fly out of the country (Gulf Coast) from non-towered airports and fly low level until out into the gulf. For their return, they would file a flight plan showing that they were departing from some small non-descript airport in southern Georgia or Mississippi. He said they’d fly back skimming the treetops until reaching the airport and then “pull up and point the aircraft up to the sun” and make radio calls as if they were taking off.

On his last run, they were intercepted by chase planes and took their Beech low over the water and unbundled all the drugs and threw it out of the plane. The chase plane could see this, but not recover any of the load, so upon landing, the Feds vacuumed the plane (yielding a small handful of drugs) and then prosecuted them to the highest possible sentence for the amount. He went to a minimum-security prison and had his FAA license taken for life.

I am sure there are many similar tales from thousands of people across the globe. In some countries drugs smuggling even carries the death penalty, but nothing seems to deter many people from taking the risk because of the vast sums of money involved and the chance of becoming rich, very quickly.

[rf3flyer]

I don't like foul mouthed Chef Gordon Ramsay, but I'm glad I put that aside and watched his documentary last night; Ramsay on Cocaine.

Same here. I'll probably watch the second episode too.

As a GA aside, I had the impression he wasn't keen on being in comparatively small aircraft. Good too to see the Columbian authorities using the HUEYs.

[JoeC]

I think that legalisation should be seriously considered with all the attendant safeguards that would go with it. This would destroy the "value chain" of illegal drugs in one go and the subsequent problems associated with organised crime. We would then "only" have to deal with the problem of addiction rather than the additional problems of crime, violence, border control etc.

[Jim Jones]

I work in drug and alcohol treatment.

The illicit drugs are physically damaging, but most less so than alcohol, definitely less so than tobacco.

The difference is that someone buying alcohol knowsexactly what they are getting, and does not risk criminal records for possessing it.

The illicit drugs are unregulated, of unknown quality, quantity and purity. They cost far far more to buy than produce and all profits go to criminal gangs and corrupt regimes. Possession is criminal and a conviction in itself can ruin lives.

The current, decades-long war on drugs has increased harm and cost billions. But any change is a vote loser.

[romille]

Surely at some point someone in Westminster is going to have to bite the bullet and admit current drugs control policy is never going to work, no matter how much resource is thrown at it and a rethink is needed. It doesn't take a genius to work out that the price of cocaine and other psychoactive substances is directly linked to supply and demand and therefore intervening in supply is fueling organised and low level crime.

[riverrock]

Not sure about less than tobacco?
For example, cannabis has a higher chance of giving you lung cancer http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bacco.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2516340/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23846283 and I don't remember tobacco causing depression or doubling the risk of developing a psychotic episode or long-term schizophrenia?