alik_05
04-14-2005, 11:34 PM
Ecstasy smuggled into US by Military Personnel - [War on Drugs]
A U.S. military pilot and a sergeant admitted they flew an Air Force jet from New York to Germany and returned with 290,000 pills of Ecstasy worth millions of dollars, authorities said Wednesday.
Capt. Franklin Rodriguez, 35, and Master Sgt. John Fong, 36, were arrested Tuesday when their cargo plane returned to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, not far from New York City. Neither of the men's lawyers would comment.
Rodriguez and Fong, members of the Air National Guard, allegedly went to a hotel room in Germany and loaded packages of Ecstasy into their personal luggage. When they returned to Stewart, federal law enforcement agents watched Fong load bags and boxes into a BMW registered to Rodriguez.
Later, both men consented to interviews during which Rodriguez admitted he had brought the drugs from Germany and had done so before. Fong admitted he brought pills on three other military flights and that he was paid $10,000 a trip.
Christopher Giovino, an agent with the DEA, said each pill of Ecstasy could be sold for between $9 and $40 US. That means the drugs seized in the case could be worth between $2.9 million and $11.6 million on the street. If convicted, the men face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, prosecutors said.
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is a synthetic drug considered part hallucinogen and part amphetamine.
CNN
A U.S. military pilot and a sergeant admitted they flew an Air Force jet from New York to Germany and returned with 290,000 pills of Ecstasy worth millions of dollars, authorities said Wednesday.
Capt. Franklin Rodriguez, 35, and Master Sgt. John Fong, 36, were arrested Tuesday when their cargo plane returned to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, not far from New York City. Neither of the men's lawyers would comment.
Rodriguez and Fong, members of the Air National Guard, allegedly went to a hotel room in Germany and loaded packages of Ecstasy into their personal luggage. When they returned to Stewart, federal law enforcement agents watched Fong load bags and boxes into a BMW registered to Rodriguez.
Later, both men consented to interviews during which Rodriguez admitted he had brought the drugs from Germany and had done so before. Fong admitted he brought pills on three other military flights and that he was paid $10,000 a trip.
Christopher Giovino, an agent with the DEA, said each pill of Ecstasy could be sold for between $9 and $40 US. That means the drugs seized in the case could be worth between $2.9 million and $11.6 million on the street. If convicted, the men face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, prosecutors said.
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is a synthetic drug considered part hallucinogen and part amphetamine.
CNN