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Flight attendants charged in connection with scheme to smuggle drug money from U.S. to Dominican Republic
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Four flight attendants have been charged in connection with an alleged scheme to smuggle drug money from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic, authorities announced Wednesday.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York alleged in two unsealed complaints that Charlie Hernandez, Sarah Valerio Pujols, Emmanuel Torres and Jarol Fabio took part in a years-long scheme to smuggle bulk cash that had been earned from selling drugs on behalf of traffickers from the United States to the Dominican Republic.
All four flight attendants worked at major international airlines and flew from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic and, according to prosecutors, knew they were ferrying drug money.
The flight attendants used their status as a “Known Crewmember, ” a program that allows airline employees to go through security checkpoints with “personal property,” to pass through security checkpoints with large amounts of cash, prosecutors said.
Two flight attendants met a confidential informant, who had been working with the Department of Homeland Security, who gave them $60,000 to bring to the Dominican Republic, the indictment said. The other two flight attendants received approximately $121,215 in drug profits from a confidential informant, the complaint alleged. Those funds were split with another flight attendant to bring to the Dominican Republic, according to prosecutors.
“This investigation has exposed critical vulnerabilities in the airline security industry and has illuminated methods that narcotics traffickers are utilizing,” Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo said in a statement.
Authorities did not clarify whether there was an uptick in airline employees smuggling drugs or drug proceeds. However, in recent years, several airline employees have been charged and convicted for using their status as trusted employees to smuggle cash and drugs through airports and on planes.
An American Airlines mechanic was convicted last year for trying to smuggle 25 pounds of cocaine underneath a plane’s cockpit from New York to Jamaica. A flight attendant in Dallas pleaded guilty in 2022 to smuggling fentanyl taped to her stomach on a flight from Fort Worth to San Francisco.
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Russian playwright, theater director sentenced to prison on terrorism charges
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A Russian court on Monday convicted a theater director and a playwright of terrorism charges and sentenced them to six years each in prison, the latest in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent across the country that has reached new heights since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
Zhenya Berkovich, a prominent independent theater director, and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk have already been in jail for over a year awaiting trial.
Authorities claimed their play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies terrorism, which is a criminal offense in Russia punishable by up to seven years in prison. Berkovich and Petriychuk have both repeatedly rejected the accusations against them.
In one hearing, Berkovich told the court that she staged the play in order to prevent terrorism, and Petriychuk echoed her sentiment, saying that she wrote it in order to prevent events like those depicted in the play.
The women’s lawyers pointed out at court hearings before the trial that the play was supported by the Russian Culture Ministry and won the Golden Mask award, Russia’s most prestigious national theater award. In 2019, the play was read to inmates of a women’s prison in Siberia, and Russia’s state penitentiary service praised it on its website, Petriychuk’s lawyer said.
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
The case against Berkovich and Petriychuk elicited outrage in Russia. An open letter in support of the two artists, started by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was signed by more than 16,000 people since their arrest.
The play, the letter argued, “carries an absolutely clear anti-terrorist sentiment.”
Dozens of Russian actors, directors and journalists also signed affidavits urging the court to release the two from custody pending investigation and trial.
Immediately after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin unleashed a sweeping campaign of repression, unparalleled since the Soviet era. It has effectively criminalized any criticism of the war, with the authorities targeting not only prominent opposition figures who eventually received draconian prison terms, but anyone who spoke out against it, publicly or otherwise.
Pressure mounted on critical artists in Russia, too. Actors and directors were fired from state-run theaters, and musicians were blacklisted from performing in the country. Some were slapped with the label “foreign agent,” which carries additional government scrutiny and strong negative connotations. Many have left Russia.
Berkovich, who is raising two adopted daughters, refused to leave Russia and continued working with her independent theater production in Moscow, called Soso’s Daughters. Shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, she staged an anti-war picket and was jailed for 11 days.
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