SANDUSKY, Mich. — A U.S. prohibition agent piloting a Black Hawk helicopter interrupted a million-dollar drug deal at a remote Michigan airport, according to the Associated Press, leading to the arrest of two Canadians who remained jailed Monday. Another bootlegger escaped in a Cessna airplane. The two Canadians, aged 32 and 20, met the pilot on the runway of the Sandusky airport and loaded the contraband -- 45 kilograms of marijuana and 500,000 ecstasy tablets worth $1 million to $2 million -- into a Toyota SUV, according the DEA and AP.
Authorities said it was T.J. Emerick who spotted the suspicious aircraft while flying the Black Hawk. Emerick used a spotlight to keep track of the SUV, according to the AP. The drug plane was just 150 meters above the ground at times.
"It's really frightening that a plane was flying so close to the ground," commented David Borden, executive director of StoptheDrugWar.org, to the Drug War Chronicle newsletter. "But the bootleggers weren't flying so low because they were on drugs," Borden continued. "They were flying that way because we have prohibition laws that could put them away for a long time, and they were trying not to get spotted. It would have been safer if those drugs had been transported legally by truck or train or a licensed aircraft, through a licensed distributor."
Borden added, "The helicopter pilot performed skillfully, but it's not really that safe having Black Hawks flying around either."
The bootleggers waived a detention hearing Monday and agreed to remain in custody while their case moves through federal prohibition court in Detroit, according to the AP.
"It's a huge ecstasy seizure, bigger than what we usually see," Assistant U.S. Prohibition Attorney Wayne Pratt told the AP. Pratt did not comment on whether he expected to see a diminished ecstasy supply in the future as a result of the seizure.
Joe Allen, manager of the Sandusky airport (near Detroit), told the AP they will consider erecting a fence in order to encourage prohibition law violators to use different smuggling methods instead.
