Nigerian Pilot, another found guilty in US of cocaine trafficking by air
A Nigerian pilot, Jibril Adamu, and a Gabonese, who is also a citizen of the United States of America and a pilot, Jean-Claude Okongo Landji, have been found guilty of conspiracy to use a US-registered aircraft to fly tons of cocaine between South America, Africa and Europe.
The United States of America Department of Justice announced the development in a statement on Wednesday.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Wendy C. Woolcock, Special Agent in Charge of the Special Operations Division of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, announced that a jury returned guilty verdicts against Adamu and Landji on the charge of conspiring to traffic five kilograms and more of cocaine on board an aircraft owned by a United States citizen and registered in the United States.
US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe presided over the two weeks trial. US. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As a jury found, Jean-Claude Okongo Landji and Jibril Adamu sought to exploit their abilities as pilots and use Landji’s private jet to smuggle multi-ton loads of cocaine from South America to West Africa and on to Europe and elsewhere. Presuming they would be able to make regular runs to Europe, figuratively flying under the radar, Landji and Adamu were instead arrested in Croatia at the end of an initial test flight. Now they await sentencing for their crime.”
The statement stated: “As reflected in the Indictment, public filings, and the evidence presented at trial: Beginning in or about October 2017, LANDJI, ADAMU, and others agreed to use a United States-registered Gulfstream G2 private jet owned by LANDJI, a United States citizen, to distribute multi-ton quantities of cocaine in South America, Africa, Europe, and elsewhere. LANDJI and ADAMU, who are both pilots, planned to use the G2 and other aircraft to fly unregistered and untraceable ‘black flights’ with multi-thousand kilogram loads of cocaine from South America to West Africa to be unloaded at clandestine airstrips, including landing sites in the Sahara desert. After the cocaine was off-loaded in …