Dominican agents down drug laden plane, pilot believed dead

Santo Domingo - The single engine plane whose wreckage was found by Dominican agents had crashed five days before, when it ran out of fuel while being chased by agents in a helicopter.

The National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) said its agents had arrested the group Saturday in Barahona, where they were waiting for the plane laden with cocaine, to land on a hidden runway.

When noticed, the pilot tried to flee but the air chase began and upon running out of fuel, went down around five kilometers from the runway at a place known as Sabana de los Canelones, Enriquillo township.

The timeline was provided in a statement by DNCD chief Rolando Rosado cited by newspaper El Dia. He said once the plane went down the search for the wreckage began.

Speaking by phone the official said the agents who remained in the zone located the plane’s charred remains on Saturday, with at least one body and the drug burned inside. “It’s the same case of around five days ago, when we detained a group of people in Barahona who were waiting for an ariplane that would bring a cocaine shipment near the mountain range, at the zone of Oviedo. When the pilot realized that his land support team had been arrested, tried to flee but our helicopter chased it. When it ran out of fuel it crashed to earth, around five kilometers from the runway.”

Rosado said the same plane had been chased in March last year, but escaped.

In a previous statement the DNCD revealed that in that case it arrested the Venezuelan Oscar Villavizar Morales, the Haitian Noe Pablitón Agustín and four Dominicans. The other detainees were Wilkin Sanchez Mateo, Carlín Nicholas Samboy, Freddy Nelson Perez Borges and Norberto Felipe Fernandez Olivo, all acquitted by the Barahona Collegiate Court.

It said Fernandez Olivo was caught in Santiago with 78 kilos of cocaine barely two months later.

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