Date of publication: 29 Apr 2022 • 1 hour ago • 4 minutes reading • 27 Comments The Pivot Airlines plane is at the airport of the Dominican Republic after 210 kilos of cocaine were found hidden in the plane. Photo by Dirección Nacional de Control de Drogas / Twitter
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Dominican Republic prosecutors have appealed against the decision to release on bail the crew and passengers of a Canadian charter plane where 210 kilograms of cocaine were found hidden, a legal move that the owner of the plane called “shocking”.
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Pivot Airlines said in a statement on Friday that it was “deeply concerned” about the safety of its employees and that the federal government should do more to ensure their safe return. The five Pivot crew members and seven passengers were ordered out of jail earlier this month on $ 23,000 bail and required to remain in the country until the drug search is completed. The airline protested against the provision, which barred Canadians from leaving the Dominican Republic, saying they were members of the crew who discovered the smuggling secret in the plane’s “air bay” and then reported it to authorities.
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The judge ordering their release noted that prosecutors did not provide evidence linking the crew or passengers to cocaine. They had already spent several days in jail before earning bail, some of them in community cells along with accused drug traffickers. Even after their release, they received credible death threats, the airline said. “In a shocking move, the prosecutor recently appealed the court’s decision to provide bail to our crew, although there is no evidence linking them to a crime,” Pivot said in a statement. It is now known in the Dominican Republic that the crew thwarted an attempt to smuggle $ 25 million worth of drugs into the streets of Canada, the company said. If they are sent back to prison along with drug criminals, they will be in serious danger without protecting the private security they had abroad, Pivot said.
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“It is completely unacceptable for Canadian citizens to be arbitrarily detained for responsible reporting of criminal activity,” he said. “Together with the international unions representing the crew, we warn Canadian travelers and more than 70,000 airline employees to seriously consider the risks of traveling to the Dominican Republic.” “If reporting a crime in the Dominican Republic could lead to arbitrary detention, the government should seriously consider issuing such travel advice.” Pivot said he was grateful for the help the federal government has provided so far. He provided consular support, and Maninder Sidhu, parliamentary secretary to Secretary of State Melanie Joly, raised the issue during a pre-arranged visit to the country last week, according to Joly’s press secretary.
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But “the simple fact is that Ottawa has not done enough to get the Canadians back safely,” the statement said. “They miss their families. They are afraid for their lives, as well as for their mental and physical well-being. And they want to come home. “ Meanwhile, the family of one of the passengers, Brittney Wojcik-Harrison, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for legal aid, food and a possible flight home. “Either she will be trapped in a foreign country for a year, or she will be trapped in a prison in a foreign country for a year and that makes me sick to my stomach,” said Brandon Harrison, Wojciech-Harrison’s cousin. the Calgary Herald Friday. The CRJ-100 regional jet landed in the Dominican Republic on March 31, transporting potential investors and their partners having fun from an Alberta company, Pivot said. They were supposed to leave on April 5, but shortly before they left an engineer traveling by plane discovered a black bag inside the bay of electronics, which contained electronic equipment.
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Pivot alerted authorities in Canada and the Dominican Republic. Police later found seven more bags, all filled with cocaine. Prosecutors claimed at the hearing that the plane and its passengers were a “facade” designed to hide the real purpose of the flight – drug trafficking in Canada. However, they said they did not claim that any of the crew placed the cocaine on the plane, only that an anonymous person accompanied the crew and boarded the plane the day before departure. Judge Francis Yojary Reyes Dilone said the fact that the crew reported the smuggling and that there was no evidence linking them or the passengers to cocaine meant that he had to impose less severe restrictions on the team than the prosecutor had requested. One of the passengers said at the hearing of the guarantee that she was invited by another man, who was a potential investor in the public limited company. “We have just been invited to visit your beautiful country, to have fun,” he said, according to the ruling. “We are completely terrified, we were here on vacation, we have no idea what is going on… We all have incredible jobs at home, we have families, I am a real estate agent, I am also a teacher.” (The number of passengers was corrected on April 29 to seven.)
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