From left to right: Mohammad Nekouie, Armando Salzano and Vincenzo Salzano
The owner of the private plane intercepted by federal agents at Metro Airport this week sought to shoulder the blame for the large cache of cocaine investigators found on board, authorities said in court filings Thursday.
“It’s all mine,” Vincenzo “Vincent” Salzano, a Colorado businessman, told agents searching the aircraft, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge.
But authorities are evidently not buying Salzano’s claim he was the only passenger who knew of the 71.8 pounds of cocaine secreted in two gym bags aboard the Beech 58P Baron.
Salzano, his son, Armando Salzano, and son-in-law, Mohammad I. Nekouie, face federal counts of conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine and remained jailed in lieu of $1 million bond each.
The pilot, who was not arrested, told authorities he had been suspicious of his passengers but claimed he was unaware he was transporting narcotics.
Federal court filings offered new details of Tuesday’s seizure, a bust State Police say prevented $1 million worth of cocaine from being delivered to Atlanta. It was the plane’s suspicious flight plan that alerted federal agents and prompted the search of the plane when it stopped in Baton Rouge, the documents show.
The plane had flown early Tuesday from Atlanta to Weslaco, Texas, near the border with Mexico, and remained in south Texas for just three hours before turning around and stopping in Baton Rouge to refuel.
Agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrived at Metro Airport as the plane was pulling into the Executive Aviation area.
The four men who stepped off the plane were asked to produce identification and the flight plan.
Agents explained to the elder Salzano their concerns about drugs being smuggled across the Mexican border.
He allowed the agents to search the plane and their initial sweep turned up empty. At some point, both Salzanos went to use the restroom.
Meanwhile, agents walked around the plane and, peering through a window, noticed a black gym bag in the aisle of the passenger area. The bag contained several “kilo-size bundles” wrapped in tape that tested positive for cocaine.
A Baton Rouge Police Department K-9 dog later sniffed out a second gym bag packed with cocaine behind a seat in the rear of the plane.
Upon returning from the bathroom, Vincent Salzano told the agents that “no one else on the plane knew anything about it,” according to the criminal complaint, signed by special agent Richard Estopinal of Homeland Security Investigations. All four of the men were escorted to the Transportation Security Administration office at the airport for questioning.
The elder Salzano, who has a previous conviction for distribution of cocaine, told investigators he had picked up the drugs “at the rear of a gas station near McAllen, Texas,” the complaint says.
He said his 32-year-old son was with him but had remained at the front of the gas station.
“Armando Salzano claimed that he did not know what was in Vincent Salzano’s bags,” Estopinal wrote in the complaint.
The pilot told agents he had flown for the elder Salzano on four or five occasions, earning $200 a day.
“According to the pilot, the destination of the trips was always McAllen, Texas,” the complaint says.
“The pilot admitted that he was suspicious of Vincent and Armando Salzano,” the complaint says, “but according to the pilot, Vincent Salzano told him the purpose of the trips was to buy and sell cars.”
No court dates have yet been set for the three men.
Three men are suspected of flying into the Baton Rouge airport Tuesday on a small plane carrying almost 72 pounds of cocaine.The men were arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to Louisiana State Police and affidavits of probable cause. They were flying from McAllen, Texas, to Atlanta on a Beechcraft 58P Baron, and stopped to refuel in Baton Rouge. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) notified Louisiana State Police that an aircraft with a suspicious flight pattern was going to land at the airport. Officials met the plane when it landed, searched the plane and discovered 71.8 pounds of cocaine, according to records. The drugs would have a retail value of about $5.5 million, based on the most recent average cocaine prices available from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That office's most recent data, from 2010, priced cocaine at $169 per gram. The Baton Rouge Police Department said Officer Luke Cowart and K9 officer Roux found 10 kilos, or about 22 pounds of the cocaine, which hadn't been located in the initial search. The three men arrested were: Vincenzo Salzano, the 55-year-old apparent owner of the plane, his son, 32-year-old Armondo Salzano, and his son-in-law, 32-year-old Mohammad Nekouie. The hired pilot of the plane was not arrested. The Salzanos are from Aurora, Colo., and Nekouie is from Littleton, Colorado.
