Posted on 11/18/2006 10:57:58 AM PST by Paleo Conservative
A BA flight engineer planned to smuggle £5million worth of cocaine into Britain — in a jumbo jet’s NOSECONE.
Gary Crane, 51, even staged a dummy run with a fake 20kg package flown from South Africa.
Crane was recruited by a smuggling gang as he could move around freely at Heathrow.
Pub landlord Raymond Harmes, 49, masterminded the operation in his pub in Stanwell, Middlesex — ironically named The Happy Landing.
But they were unaware one of their gang was an undercover cop.
And in South Africa it was a local detective who placed the fake drugs on the plane.
Baggage handler Neil Weir, 42, turned supergrass when they were rumbled, Reading Crown Court heard this week.
Harmes and Crane were each handed 13 years behind bars last year.
But as a result of Weir’s revelations, police realised they had already smuggled large amounts of cocaine into the UK — believed to be around £13million worth.
The pair both admitted further smuggling charges. Harmes received 13 years and eight months, while Crane, of Upper Halliford, Surrey, got nine years and nine months, both terms to run concurrently with their initial sentences.
Weir, of Ashford, West London, admitted smuggling but his sentence was reduced to five-and-a-half years.
Frank Asante, a “principal” in the ring, got 23 years.
Plan ... to smuggle cocaine in 747's nose
If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.
OOPs. I did it for Cill Blinton.
Wow. I bet a 747 could snort a lot of coke.
I wonder how long into the flight the nose cone septum would have rotted out?
Jet fuel is cheaper isn't it?
The bad news is, the coke was gone when they got to Heathrow. The good news is, the plane set a new speed record from Johannesburg to London.
Translation, please?
They got a picture of the residue.
...and I thought that I understood English.
?
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.....
A supergrass is an informer. The term originated in the UK where informers were often referred to as 'coppers', in relation to the help they provide to police with investigations - the Cockney rhyming slang for 'copper' is 'grasshopper'. This was eventually shortened to 'grass'. The word 'super' was later added to suggest a large-scale informer.
Hmmm.. learned something new and useless today!
An establishment name ahead of it's time.
And the useful time of flight this 747 is anticipated to have is drastically lowered.
Look at the other bright side... Good thing it wasn't a suitcase nuke.
Let it taxi up to the gate and blamo.
I'm guessing, from the context, "...turned states-evidence when they were arrested/arraigned..."
I don't get it, wouldn't all those Coke cans flying around in the nose cone screw up operation of the radar? 20kg of Coke flying around in front of the radar antannae certainly would cause some anomolies, no? That collision avoidance software would be going off all the time.
Exactly. Or, this side of the Pond, "snitched bigtime when they were nabbed."
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