[ad_1]
The Brazilian Federal Police seized, on February 9, at the Salvador International Airport, in Brazil, 500 kilos of cocaine inside a private jet whose final destination was the Tires airfield in Cascais. It is suspected that the malfunction detected in the plane, which forced the device to remain on the ground and which later led to the discovery of the drug, was caused during the insertion of the cocaine packages into the fuselage of the plane.
One of the passengers was João Loureiro, former president of Boavista, who ended up giving up the flight and who previously would have even insisted with the plane commander that a strict inspection of the cargo be carried out. TO THE PUBLIC the Federal Police of Brazil said that João Loureiro remained in the country at the request of the authorities and that he will be heard this Friday as a witness. “He did not hold back. No crew member or other passenger was detained ”, said a source from the Federal Police, highlighting that only the three crew members were heard and that only João Loureiro would be heard from the passengers.
The return flight from Brazil to Portugal was scheduled for February 7, with a stopover in Cape Verde, and with an estimated time of arrival in Tires at 5:30 p.m. that day. But the commander of the aircraft detected a problem and had to ask the technicians for help, a source from OMNI, the company that owns the plane, told the PUBLIC.
Own OMNI issued a statement this Friday explaining this situation: “On the trip to the Salvador airport, awaiting authorization to return to Lisbon, a technical problem was detected during the approach. This situation caused the need for a maintenance intervention on the plane, and it was promptly requested by the Flight Commander. to Dassault (aircraft manufacturer), in São Paulo ”.
As the PUBLIC learned, the mechanics arrived at the Salvador airport on the night of February 8 and, since it was already late, they only touched the plane the next morning. And it was at that moment, when inspecting the device, that they discovered the hidden drug (they found a volume attached to the internal structure of the plane), having alerted the authorities with the knowledge of the commander of the device.
The technicians are convinced that the damage reported by the commander was due to the insertion of drug packages into the fuselage of the device. The drug was hidden in the fuselage of the plane and in various compartments.
The crew, the captain, the copilot and a flight attendant were heard by the authorities and ended up returning to Portugal on commercial flights, since the jet, which belongs to a Portuguese company, was seized.
Brazil’s Federal Police are now trying to find out where the cocaine came from and who possessed it.
There are suspicions that the drug was placed on the plane in São Paulo, where the device was detained for several days.
Who were the passengers?
At the time of the seizure of the drug, there were no passengers on board because, due to the delay and the uncertainty of time to solve the problem of the plane, the passengers chose to travel by other means.
There were only two passengers on the flight from São Paulo to Salvador, a Spanish citizen and João Loureiro, former president of Boavista. But on the return flight from Salvador to Portugal the passenger list increased: in addition to the Spanish citizen and João Loureiro, there were four football-related businessmen on the list, namely Bruno André Carvalho dos Santos, Hugo Miguel Gonçalves Cajuda de Sousa , Paulo Jorge Saturnino Cunha, Bruno Geraldes de Macedo and the player Lucas Veríssimo da Silva, hired by Benfica.
“It was planned to return on that flight, along with other passengers,” João Loureiro told JN, “but he had already stopped doing so long before the scheduled date and the matter was discussed, having communicated enough with the respective airline that he would return to Portugal on a commercial flight over another European country ”. As the other passengers ended up doing, the company responsible for the flight told the public.
The former president of the Boavista Futebol Clube also said that he was the one who insisted on a rigorous inspection of the plane’s cargo, but did not explain why. The PUBLIC knows that because of this insistence on inspection by João Loureiro, the Federal Police requested that he remain in Brazil and will be heard this Friday afternoon.
As the PUBLIC learned, the plane was chartered by an advisory company based in São Paulo, and it was the first time that it used the service of the Portuguese aviation company.
At the moment, according to a Federal Police source, no arrests have yet been made in connection with this case.
The Portuguese Judicial Police have collaborated with the Brazilian authorities in the fight against drug trafficking and this case is covered by that collaboration.
