A plane from Venezuela with more than a tonne of cocaine on board has crashed into the Caribbean while being pursued by Colombia’s air force.
The air force said fighter jets intercepted the plane after it entered Colombia’s air space on Wednesday and ordered it to descend. After the pilot made an evasive manoeuvre one of the plane’s motors apparently failed and the aircraft crashed off the coast of Puerto Colombia, the military said.
Colombia’s coast guard said the body of the pilot was found among the wreckage along with 1.2 metric tonnes of cocaine.
“The airplane … which left Venezuela and was destined for Central America, was detected in the early hours of today when it illegally entered Colombian air space,” the air force said.
Reports described the plane as either a Hawker 600 or 800 model – putting it in a family of twin-engined jets often used as corporate or VIP aircraft.
Colombia turns out about 300 tonnes of cocaine annually, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Authorities confiscated about 166 tonnes in 2014.
Cocaine often makes its way to buyers in the United States and Europe via smuggling routes through Venezuela, Central America and Mexico and across the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans, on a dog-legged path to avoid entering Colombian air space.
Colombia’s Marxist Farc rebels and criminal gangs reap hefty profits from the drug trade. Cocaine and other drugs are some of the principal sources of financing for groups fighting in the country’s 50-year armed conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report
