A Connecticut-based drug gang pilot who was captured after trying to smuggle nearly two tons of cocaine into the United States was extradited to Hartford on Monday where authorities are asking that he be held without bail pending trial, federal prosecutors said.
Federal authorities said Mexican pilot Ronier Sanchez Alonzo, 46, was helping transport drugs from South America to Honduras for a Wolcott-based drug trafficking organization in 2016 when the heavily laden private jet, registered in Connecticut, ran out of fuel and was forced about 25 miles from an airport he was trying to reach in Honduras.
The crew planned to load the drugs onto a truck in Honduras, where they would be trucked through Mexico and into the United States for distribution in Connecticut and elsewhere, authorities said.
“After the emergency landing in an unplanned location, Venezuelan authorities were alerted to the plane’s arrival and responded with an order to open fire on the plane on the ground, ensuring that it would not could take off anymore,” prosecutors said in documents filed in the U.S. District. Court Monday. “The crew, including Sanchez, managed to run and hide in a nearby row of trees until they were eventually rescued by members of the drug trafficking organization and provided them with safe passage and escort to Colombia.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has learned that the cocaine was “diverted to Colombia” and that Sanchez traveled to Paraguay, where the government agreed to extradite him despite his objections to the U.S. request .
DEA and local law enforcement agents said in court documents that their investigation showed that between 2015 and 2016, the Wolcott organization smuggled large amounts of cocaine into the United States from the United States. Venezuela and Colombia. Drugs were sold in the United States and money was smuggled back to Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, they said.
The investigation identified Sanchez as one of the organization’s pilots based in Mexico and linked him to smugglers in the Dominican Republic and Wolcott, federal prosecutors said.
“Sanchez’s duties with this drug trafficking organization focused primarily on his role and expertise as a pilot who would promote DTO smuggling routes between Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and La Dominican Republic,” federal prosecutors said.
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Authorities said Sanchez was co-piloting the plane when it was forced to land in August 2016. With him were pilot Rupert B. De Las Casas and Ricardo Manuel Alcala-Casillas, who was believed to be the bodyguard for cocaine.
Sanchez faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for using an aircraft to smuggle more than five kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Sanchez and others are charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine on board an aircraft registered in US Sanchez has been detained since his arrest in Paraguay on March 25, 2021.
De Las Casas, who last resided in Florida, pleaded guilty and is being held pending sentencing. Alcala-Casillas is on the run.
Another co-conspirator, Arrinson De La Cruz, who had worked at an airport in the Dominican Republic and helped coordinate the plane’s journey through the airport without interruption, was charged separately for his role in the scheme and d other drug trafficking activities. De La Cruz, a citizen of the Dominican Republic who had resided in Wolcott, Connecticut, pleaded guilty and, on November 20, 2019, was sentenced to 144 months in prison.
The aircraft was registered in Connecticut. De las Casas’ sentence has been extended. There’s a transcript of the plea proceedings posted on his file. Arrinson de la Cruz lived in Connecticut.