Robert Di Venanzo said “It’s absolutely horrendous – terrible, terrible stuff we’re going through,” and begged the Canadian authorities to repatriate them after just over two months of incarnation. The Pivot Airlines crew face up to a year detained while the local police investigate seized bags of drugs that were found on the aircraft as it was being made ready to depart back to Toronto, Canada on 5th April.
The nightmare for the crew started at Pinta Cana airport when maintenance engineer Bal Krishna Dubey found some black bags in a maintenance bay of the jet. According to the crew, they reported the find to both local law enforcement and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Two local police officers and sniffer dogs initially investigated and found packages of white powder when they unzipped the bags. In total eight bags were found, containing around 200kg of cocaine with an estimated value of $25 million.
#BringThemHome @JustinTrudeau @luisabinader #SummitAmericas #SummitoftheAmericas pic.twitter.com/P7UyQ44gfI
— Pivot Airlines (@flywithpivot) June 10, 2022
The crew watched as the officers were photographed for a press released and believed they were about to be thanked for finding the drugs, however, they were arrested and put in jail.
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Di Venanzo tells how the four males in the crew were put in a communal cell, whilst its only female member, Christina Carello, was sent to a women’s communal cell. The conditions were horrendous he says, over the following nine days, other inmates forced the Canadians to sleep standing up or next to the hole in the floor that was used as a toilet. “They were on us, trying to extort money, telling us ‘you’re not going to be safe in here, you’re not going to be able to sleep, you’re going to get injured unless you send us money via e-transfer.’ That started from day one, and progressively got worse until day nine,” he told the Guardian newspaper.
The crew are now in a safe house after being released on bail, with security provided by the airline, but Di Venanzo fears that local prosecutors are trying to get them returned to prison, “That’s the top of our top of our thoughts right now – the prospect of going back into detention in that hellish, hellish situation we were in for nine days,”.
Eric Edmonson, CEO of Pivot Airlines, said that “placing them back in jail alongside alleged narcotics criminals will put them at serious risk of harm, without the protection of the private security we have hired.”
Global Affairs Canada said they were monitoring the situation closely and officials were engaging with the local authorities as well as providing consular assistance to the crew.
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